Raffles timeline - part 2 (The Details)

[regshoe]

Part 1; Part 3

This post explains the relevant canon references to dates and how I put them together into a timeline. It isn't in chronological order—because some dates are inferred from other dates, there's a necessary logical order to working out how they fit together that doesn't follow chronological order, hence why this post had to be separate from the timeline itself.

I've used Holmes-style four-letter abbreviations for the story titles, since this post is quite long enough without writing them out in full. Here's a list in case they're not obvious.

Begin with the stories that are conclusively dated by canon, either through a specific date included in the story or by an identifiable historical event:

 

SINE: Raffles’s telegram was sent on ‘May 11, 1897’; the rest of the story takes place the same day.
 

 

GENT: Begins on ‘the second Monday in July’; they arrive at Milchester on ‘Monday, August 10’, and the crime takes place in the small hours of the following Saturday morning. The only suitable year in which the date Monday, August 10 occurred is 1891 (the nearest alternatives are 1885 and 1896, neither of which is compatible with the date of 1897 for the Maturin era); so we can date the whole story as taking place between Monday, 13 July and Saturday, 15 August, 1891.
 

 

JUBI: Takes place around the time of Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, which was celebrated on Tuesday, 22 June, 1897; we can’t get an exact date for the first part of the story (Bunny only says that it’s June), but Raffles sends the cup to the Queen on the Saturday before the Jubilee, which would be the 19th.
 

 

KNEE: Opens with the outbreak of the Second Boer War, which took place on 11 October, 1899. Raffles and Bunny begin to take an interest in the war ‘one russet afternoon’, when they hear news of heavy British losses at ‘Eland’s Laagte’; the battle of Elandslaagte was on 21 October. They leave England ‘at the beginning of February’. There are more references to real-world battles that can be worked out if wished, but the most important piece of information is Raffles’s statement in the final scene that it is ‘six months’ since the day they first took notice of the war. This allows the whole story to be dated between October, 1899 and April, 1900.
 

 

CRIM: Bunny tells us it’s February, and there are references to IDES and GENT as having taken place ‘a year or two ago’. More precise is Raffles’s story about a man going to be hanged ‘last March’ after a ‘crucial’ Test Match in Australia which England won. The only match that I can find fitting this description was played in March of 1892, putting the story in February, 1893.
 

 

BADN: Ought to be in this group, but can’t be! Like CRIM, it contains clear, detailed references to a real-world cricket match: the Second Test Match of the Australian Tour at Old Trafford in Manchester, ‘on the third Thursday, Friday and Saturday in July’. Unfortunately, the match fitting this description took place in 1896, which, given that this story takes place during the First Innings period, is entirely incompatible with the 1897 dates established for the Maturin stories. We’ll have to ignore the cricket match and come back to this one later.
 

 

RAFF: Dated December, 1899.
 

 

WORD: Bunny’s ex-fiancee’s letter is dated ‘June 28, 1900’; they met the day before, and she wrote the letter overnight.

 

 

 

Other stories that are dated in relation to these, or to each other, can then be fixed:
 

 

IDES: Takes place on 15 March! Bunny says in GENT that he was still innocent of crime ‘the year before’, and the discussion of these two stories in CRIM also places them in the same year, so it’s 15 March, 1891.
 

 

PREM: Immediately after GENT, and we’re told that Raffles relates the story ‘that night’, i.e. the Saturday of their return from Milchester; by the end it’s the next morning.
 

 

WILF: Bunny tells us that the theft of the Ardagh emeralds took place ‘eight or nine weeks’ after GENT, and this story begins ‘the evening after our return from Ireland’; this places it in October.
 

 

RETU: It’s November, and Raffles speaks of GENT as ‘last year’; hence November, 1892. This is apparently the beginning of Mackenzie’s suspicions of Raffles, which becomes important in dating later stories.
 

 

GIFT: Presents some problems. Raffles mentions RETU as having taken place ‘last November’, which ought to put this story in 1893; but back-dating from SINE, which states that Bunny has been in prison for ‘eighteen months’, suggests 1895 as the most plausible year. More on this in another post; for now, we’ll go with 1895. The story opens on a Sunday ‘months’ since Raffles and Bunny have met, and they plan to ‘spend July in the Mediterranean’; they sail two weeks later on the Monday, and steal the pearl at Genoa in the early hours of Tuesday morning a week after that. June to July, 1895 is (fairly) certain; I’ve arbitrarily chosen a suitable set of dates, although a week earlier or later would also be plausible.
 

 

COST: Begins ‘barely a month since’ IDES, i.e. mid-April 1891, and the main adventure takes place a week later.
 

 

FATE: The framing story takes place ‘in the early heat of August’, in what we can assume is the same year as SINE.
 

 

LAUG: Takes place in September, ‘weeks’ after FATE.
 

 

OUTO: ‘The close of’ May, and ‘a few weeks later’ from IDES; opens on a Wednesday—presumably the 27th, which was the last Wednesday in May 1891—after which the burglary is attempted in the early hours of the morning; Raffles returns ‘a few days later’. The past events described in WORD take place within the time frame of this story.
 

 

CHES: Presents some minor difficulties. Bunny says that this story takes place ‘in the year after that of my novitiate’. However, it’s ‘early April’, near Easter, and Raffles and Bunny discuss the events of RETU as some time previously; this makes April 1892 impossible, so we must assume 1893. Easter Sunday was on 2 April in 1893; since the three days of the story can’t be later than the Tuesday to Thursday before (the bank would have been closed on Good Friday), it can’t quite be April yet.
 

 

OLDF: Opens ‘at the latter end of that same season’ as the rest of the Maturin stories, and Bunny says that it’s autumn; ‘some weeks’ pass between the opening and Bunny’s parting from Raffles, and ten days between this and the ending. Since Bunny’s description of life at Ham Common in WRON begins in November, it’s reasonable to suppose they began living there near the beginning of that month; which puts this story probably between late September and early November.
 

 

WRON: Bunny describes life ‘from November to March’ in setting the scene; he doesn’t explicitly state that the main events of the story take place at the end of this period, but since the cut-off of March is otherwise fairly arbitrary it’s reasonable to assume they do, which makes it March, 1898.

 

 

 

 

The next group of stories have enough information for some reasonable extrapolation, but not enough to be dated conclusively. I’ll set out the information here, but for some of them the logic will need to wait.
 

 

NINE: Bunny states in RETU that there have been no burglaries since the events of this story, ‘for months’, and it’s then ‘the following November’; therefore, this story must take place between WILF and RETU. Given how many of the stories set in summer mention cricket, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that the lack of cricket in this story means it isn’t cricket season: the combination of this and the ‘months’ between it and RETU in November place the story probably in September, 1892, although it could be earlier.
 

 

CACT: Certainly takes place between SINE and OLDF, and (assuming the stories are in chronological order) probably between LAUG and OLDF; however, the ‘sultry’, ‘hot and close’ weather followed by a thunderstorm sounds like late summer. I think it’s possible that this story actually takes place in August between FATE and LAUG, but don’t like to assume non-chronological order where this isn’t absolutely necessary, so I’ve gone with September.
 

 

REST: Opens ‘late in August’ when Bunny has not seen Raffles ‘for a month or more’, and he hasn’t played cricket since July. Raffles mentions that ‘a canny man at Scotland Yard’ has some suspicions about him; since police suspicion of Raffles appears to have begun in RETU, we can assume it’s after that story. Bunny spends a week in the house, by the end of which it is ‘a very warm September’.
 

 

FIEL: It’s summer; the final scene takes place at the Varsity match, which was played in each of the possible years around the end of June or beginning of July. We’re also told that it ‘must be fifteen years’ since Raffles and Nasmyth met at school, during Bunny’s first term.
 

 

Retuning to BADN, the other information we have once we ignore the cricket match is that it’s July, a reference to Raffles having ‘followed cabs’—which he does during REST, implying that it’s after that story—and Bunny’s thought that ‘Raffles had been wrong about me all these years’, implying that it’s at least a few years after IDES.
 

 

TRAP: It’s ‘the latter end of March’. When Raffles telephones Bunny, he thinks he might be at the Albany, and later states that Raffles is on the telephone; so it’s after CHES, when Raffles had the telephone installed. Raffles refers to the events of BADN.
 

 

SPOI: It’s April, and there’s another reference to BADN. Raffles refers to the late 1860s, when the Manders’ old house was built, as ‘about thirty years ago’.
 

 

JUST: Contains plenty of clues, but they’re very difficult to work out; more detail later.

 

 

 

 

At this point, it becomes possible to fill in some events other than the dates of specific stories:
 

 

Bunny’s age: He states in OLDF, in a scene probably taking place in October 1897, that he is thirty, which puts his date of birth somewhere between November, 1866 and October, 1867. This fits in well with his statement in IDES (March 1891) that he came into his fortune ‘three years ago’; if he inherited on coming of age, he would be 24 during IDES, consistent with a date of birth in late 1866 or early 1867.
 

 

Raffles’s age: The only definite evidence to place this is the statement in FIEL that Raffles was in the Upper Sixth at school when Bunny was in the Middle Fourth; this makes him about four years older than Bunny. This is consistent with Bunny’s statement in SINE that Raffles ‘had aged twenty years; he looked fifty at the very least’, implying that he’s really in his early thirties, or was the last time Bunny saw him; the dates worked out here put him at about 34 at this time.
 

 

Raffles and Bunny’s first meeting at school: Bunny probably started at public school at the age of thirteen; assuming this was at the beginning of the academic year makes it most likely to be September, 1880. This is also consistent with the statement in IDES that they were at school together ‘ten years ago’, i.e. 1881.
 

 

The canon disagrees with itself about which university Raffles went to (COST says Oxford, FIEL and JUST Cambridge), but assuming he did go, it would then be in 1881.
 

 

The past events of PREM: The story takes place when Raffles was playing cricket in Melbourne, Australia, with a ‘big Christmas match’ involved; Test Matches fitting this description were played in December of both 1881 and 1882. Given that Raffles had apparently only just started at university in 1881, I think 1882 is the more plausible date.
 

 

The past events of FATE, and the rest of Raffles’s activities between GIFT and SINE: Raffles’s description dates these quite precisely from the end of GIFT. He spends ‘a few weeks’ on Elba (July, 1895) before going to the mainland, where he lives at the vineyard for ‘eight months’ (roughly August, 1895 to March, 1896), during which the main events of the story take place; and then spends the intervening time until his return to London in Genoa. The return to London can be dated from his statement in SINE that he has been there ‘for the last six weeks’ to March, 1897.
 

 

As for Bunny during this time: We’re told in SINE that he was in prison for ‘eighteen months’, and the situation in SINE implies he’s been out for at least several weeks (he’s had time to be rejected by one relative and helped by another, and to begin re-establishing his writing career); given the ending of GIFT in July 1895, I think August, 1895 to February, 1897 is reasonable.
 

 

Immediately post-canon: The dates of KNEE and WORD establish that Bunny returns to England some time between April and June, 1900.
 

 

In-universe publication of the stories: Bunny states in the Narrator’s Note to ‘The Black Mask’ that ‘thirty moons have come and gone’ since the publication of ‘The Amateur Cracksman’, and in KNEE that the outbreak of war was ‘the winter before last’, and that their troupe are still in South Africa (the war ended in May 1902). All these statements are consistent with the real-world publication dates of these books; if the in-universe publication dates of at least the first two books are at least approximately the same as the real-world ones, making the not unreasonable assumption that the dates are all exactly the same allows all the publication dates to be added to the timeline.

 

 

 

 

Finally, returning to the still inconclusive stories from above:
 

 

Both REST and BADN take place in the summer; both are after RETU and before GIFT, so there are only two available summers, those of 1893 and 1894; REST takes place later in the year than BADN but is before it. Therefore we can place REST in August to September, 1893 and BADN in July, 1894.
 

 

It’s impossible for FIEL to be as much as fifteen years after Bunny’s first term at school, since this was in 1880 and GIFT is in June 1895; but assuming it’s as close as possible to fifteen places it in 1894, though it could be earlier. The date of the Varsity Match that year then puts the ending on or around 2 July.
 

 

TRAP and SPOI are both in the spring, and both between BADN and GIFT, so only 1895 is possible; this puts TRAP in late March, 1895 and SPOI in April, 1895. This last date fits in well with, and provides a plausible motivation for, the state of things at the start of GIFT, in which Raffles and Bunny have not seen each other for ‘months’ by June 1895 after Bunny apparently broke things off some time earlier.
 

 

The main events of JUST present serious problems; there’s lots of information that might help to establish a date, but no way to reconcile the various clues given with each other and with the rest of the timeline. I think July, 1893 is probably the least implausible date, but even this contradicts the book at least twice. The last chapter, in which Bunny and Teddy meet again, takes place ‘last year’ (the book was published in 1909), during the Eton and Harrow match, and Bunny is forty; this places it probably in the summer of 1907.