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.