The Adventures of Raffles

Neil Hamilton starred as A. J. Raffles, London's man of mystery, in The Adventures of Raffles. The show featured the adventures of the former gentleman thief along with his sidekick. A. J. Raffles was the creation of E. W. Hornung, brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle. Raffles and his sidekick seemed to be somewhat based on Doyle's Sherlock Holmes with Raffles as the Holmes-like character and the sidekick as the Dr. Watson-like character. The sidekick on the radio show varied from a character named Reggie to a woman named Doreen. In the books, the sidekick is a man, Bunny Manders.

There were two instances of Raffles on the radio. The first time Raffles appears on American radio is in 1933 or 1934 then again as a summer replacement in 1942. The shows feature mysteries with several types of plots:

• Raffles works with Scotland Yard but is not quite trusted because of his background.
• Raffles is hired to steal something but finds a corpse and Scotland Yard detectives appear and he pleads to solve the crime.
• Raffles breaks ups Nazi spy rings in England even though the character was introduced in 1890 (similar to the later Sherlock Holmes radio series).

Only four episodes of the show exist. In the beginning each episode was a 30 minute standalone story. Later, however, the show became a 15 minute serial.