Raffles's adventures have been adapted across various media, the character played by a number of popular actors including John Barrymore and David Niven.

[7] Rowland writes that Raffles and Manders were also fictionalised versions of Oscar Wilde and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas.

Hornung explained in an interview with Tit-Bits in 1909: A good many years ago I wrote a story about a public-school villain; he committed a terrible crime in Australia, and was met by his old fag, who shielded him.

One day my brother-in-law, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to whom I owe a very great deal, said to me, 'What a pity you killed that fellow!

[9]"After the Fact" was inspired by Hornung's travels in Australia and by his only experience with a real burglar, which occurred while the author was living at Teddington, England.

Hornung described the incident to Tit-Bits in 1909 when discussing Raffles, though the burglar was unimpressive and nothing like the gentleman thief character.

Hornung had been asked by a house's caretakers to help them catch a burglar, who tried to hide in a space under the kitchen floor but was ultimately apprehended by a policeman.

Rowland writes that "Hornung (having passed the midway point of his story) had realised that he was on very dangerous ground and had speedily de-glamorised Deedes.

Morality had been asserted at the eleventh hour, and justice had to be administered without further ado.... After experimenting with his new concept in 'After the Fact', Hornung was aware that his amateur cracksman would have to be a thoroughly decent chap even if he is a bit of a law-breaker.

"[11] Furthermore, Raffles views burglary as a sporting challenge and has a prominent position in society (as a gentleman cricketer), unlike Deedes, who is only after money and is a social outcast.

Raffles stole at least one policeman's helmet while at Oxford according to the short story "A Costume Piece", but was a member of the Cambridge cricket team according to "The Field of Philippi".

Ten years after they were at their public school together,[18] Raffles meets Bunny again when they play baccarat with others in "The Ides of March".

[19] Raffles and Bunny act as "amateur" (gentleman) thieves and rob wealthy members of London society while appearing respectable.

Scotland Yard detective Inspector Mackenzie, who is first mentioned in "A Costume Piece" and is first seen by Bunny in "Gentlemen and Players", is suspicious of Raffles.

Raffles jumps overboard, and is believed to have drowned, while Bunny is arrested and serves a term of eighteen months in prison.

Initially, Raffles pretends to be an invalid named Mr. Maturin living under a doctor's supervision in an Earl's Court flat, with Bunny as his nurse.

At the start of the series, Raffles has piercing steel blue eyes, curly black hair, pale skin, an athletic build, a strong, unscrupulous mouth, and is clean-shaven.

[23] His physical strength later returns to him when he and Bunny move to live in the suburbs, where Raffles also wears clouded spectacles during the day to partially conceal his face.

[24] Raffles dyes his hair after he decides to volunteer for military service in 1900, to make sure he is not recognized by officers he knew in the past.

[28] In "Gentlemen and Players", Raffles claims he has lost all enthusiasm for cricket, and keeps it up only as a cover for his real occupation (which he considers more exciting) and as mental exercise.

In a late story, he steals a gold cup from the British Museum on impulse: when challenged by Bunny as to how he will dispose of it, he posts it to the Queen as a Diamond Jubilee present.

He also uses more unusual tools of his own invention, including a rope-ladder which can be concealed under his waistcoat and hooked up with a telescopic walking-stick, and a small velvet bag designed to silence the sound of filing a skeleton key.

In "Gentlemen and Players", Bunny describes Raffles as "a dangerous bat, a brilliant field, and perhaps the very finest slow bowler of his decade".

"[28] Orwell says in his essay that, though Raffles and Bunny "are devoid of religious belief, and they have no real ethical code, merely certain rules of behaviour", they "are gentlemen, and such standards as they do have are not to be violated.

[28] Literary critic Stuart Evers said of the Raffles stories, "Their off-kilter plotting and sometimes hysterical style, which Hornung uses to great effect to show Bunny's emotionally erratic state, may date them.

The character contributed to the archetype of the gentleman criminal who has a code of honour, steals only from the rich, and is drawn to burglary for the sport as much as for the money.

[44] The British press used Raffles as a synonym for a real-life thief in at least forty-seven newspaper articles in the period 1905–1939, in many cases in the headlines.

Peter Rowland writes that Doyle's biographers generally acknowledge that his decision to return Holmes to life in "The Adventure of the Empty House" in October 1903 was prompted by Hornung's success with A. J. Raffles, who had been returned to life in the 1901 story "No Sinecure" after his supposed death in an earlier story.