After the events of The Amateur Cracksman A. J. Raffles is missing, presumed dead, and “Bunny” Manders is destitute but free after a stretch in prison for his crimes. So when a mysterious telegraph arrives suggesting the possibility of a lucrative position, Bunny has little option but to attend the given address.

Raffles was a commercial success for E. W. Hornung , garnering critical praise but also warnings about the glorification of crime. The Black Mask , published two years after his first collection of Raffles stories, takes a markedly more downcast tone, with the high-life escapades of the earlier stories curtailed by Raffles’ purported death.