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    Raffles - The Amateur Cracksman
    Raffles - The Amateur Cracksman
    Raffles - The Amateur Cracksman
    Audiobook5 hours

    Raffles - The Amateur Cracksman

    Written by E. W. Hornung

    Narrated by David Rintoul

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    If you walk down London’s Piccadilly, you come across an elegant Georgian building set back from the constant stream of traffic. This is The Albany, an imposing warren of “bachelor” apartments which has been home to a string of celebrities for over two centuries, from Lord Byron to Terence Stamp
    But The Albany was also the address for one of the greatest fictional creations of late 19th-century crime writing, AJ Raffles.

    The author, E.W. Hornung was not as well known as his brother-in-law, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, yet in many ways, Hornung was a better writer and Raffles a cleverer star then even Sherlock himself.

    For Raffles operates on the wrong side of the law, yet remains a magnetic and sympathetic personality. On the surface, Raffles is a gentleman cricketer straight out of the pages of “Boy’s Own” – yet from the very first story, “The Ides of March”, we discover that this is all a pretence: behind the mask is a bankrupt who commits a series of sensational crimes to finance his champagne and cigars lifestyle – and his flat in The Albany.

    What separates Raffles from Holmes is that he’s more recognizably human and fallible – he doesn’t always lift the loot, and bad luck throws him a few curve balls. Whether the setting is an English country house or the Australian outback, Raffles’s diamond-hard determination, his lightning ingenuity and profound knowledge of human nature are always on display, And though he could have been hanged for any one of these crimes, Raffles remains a man you wouldn’t mind sharing a cocktail or two with during a night out on the town.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCreative Content
    Release dateJan 4, 2014
    ISBN9781908807175
    Author

    E. W. Hornung

    Ernest William Hornung (1866 –1921) was a prolific English poet and novelist, famed for his A. J. Raffles series of novels about a gentleman thief in late 19th century London. Hornung spent most of his life in England and France, but in 1883 he traveled to Australia where he lived for three years, his experiences there shaping many of his novels and short stories. On returning to England he worked as a journalist, and also published many of his poems and short stories in newspapers and magazines. A few years after his return, he married Constance Aimée Doyle, sister of his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with whom he had a son. During WWI he followed the troops in French trenches and later gave a detailed account of his encounters in Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front. Ernest Hornung died in 1921.

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    Reviews for Raffles - The Amateur Cracksman

    3.5/5

    27 ratings22 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Not quite what I was expecting - given their age (and the contemporary novelty of the theme) they are remarkably tightly written. Very much in the style of Sherlock Holmes, although the individual stories have less depth.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Surprisingly enjoyable. There's an emotional shallowness that comes with pulp stories of this short length, but Bunny's curious devotion to Raffles and the uncanny moral void that they both operate in, manage to be unexpectedly moving. The finale of the collection especially, with Bunny's image of Raffles' head bobbing off towards land as he's clapped in irons, is powerful.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      A series of short stories told in a continuous narrative about Raffles - the thief who is a great Cricketeer - and his pal, Bunny. Interesting in that they are told from the viewpoint of the thief.
    • 5/5
      Delightful stories. I don't know why I never got around to reading them before. Ruffles is a precursor of James Bond -- cool, sophisticated, and addicted to danger. Bunny is Everyman, the half terrified, half worshiping smuck who, against all his better judgment, invariably falls in with his hero. The particular capers themselves are not of any great interest. They're just a setting for Ruffles, the gentleman cricket player who commits jewel theft as an amusement.
    • 2/5
      "I say, Bunny. The Count has a stone of incomparable worth, the color of a Peacock's crown. Shall we attempt it tonight?"
      "Surely, you must be joking. Won't his man impede us? He will not be attending the Ball at Hamptons with him, after all. I must say, you do take unwarranted risks."
      Yeah, yeah. I know. Boring yet pretentious. The greatest Cricketer of the age a cat burglar. What nonsense. What rot. Don't bother. Good, it's not.
    • 5/5
      Delightful stories. I don't know why I never got around to reading them before. Ruffles is a precursor of James Bond -- cool, sophisticated, and addicted to danger. Bunny is Everyman, the half terrified, half worshiping smuck who, against all his better judgment, invariably falls in with his hero. The particular capers themselves are not of any great interest. They're just a setting for Ruffles, the gentleman cricket player who commits jewel theft as an amusement.
    • 5/5
      A. J. Raffles, a gentleman thief, travels among the elite of the London social register. Invited for his classy manners and top cricket playing at many a manor and country estate, he is a bit of a Robin Hood-esque figure crossed with Sherlock Holmes. Being of good manners, he never steals from his hosts, but if there is something amiss he will make it all right.

      Harry "Bunny" Manders, an old schoolmate, plays Watson to Raffles. Recording their many adventures while also being the partner in crime.

      In "A Jubilee Present", Raffles becomes enamored with a priceless gold cup in the British Museum. Managing to steal it from out of heavy security, it finds it so beautiful that he can't melt it down to sell. Instead he presents it to Queen Victoria in tribute to her Diamond Jubilee. A bit of Robin Hood here.

      This is the second collection of short stories recounting some of their adventure. The stories take place later in their careers. This was the first collection published. There are two other books of earlier adventures that were published later. I definitely plan to read them.

      Interesting note is that E.W. Hornung was Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law, and felt that Raffles was to be a form of flattery to Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
    • 3/5
      This is one of those books that I felt I had to read because I've heard about it so much. It is a slim volume of short stories told in a continuous narrative. Bunny, the narrator, is a friend who was tricked into joining Raffles in crime. After the first time, future crimes naturally follow. The stories are simple, fun, old-fashioned ("It's a fair cop, guv'nor"), although Raffles is not as honourable as I was led to believe.
    • 4/5
      Raffles is a series of short stories about a charismatic gentleman thief (narrated by his friend and partner in crime) who steals for the love of the chase as much as for his livelihood. If that sounds a bit familiar, it's worth pointing out that Hornung was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law, Doyle was the one who suggested that Hornung take a one-shot about a gentleman thief and turn it into a series, and the two proceeded to steal ideas from each other with apparent relish. The similarities between Raffles and Holmes are certainly obvious - while I'd hesitate to classify Raffles as a genius of the same caliber as Holmes, he's undoubtedly quite clever in his capers, and the two series bring the same sense of artistry to their respective professions.There are several issues with the Raffles stories - for one thing, they're rather short and go by far too quickly; the setup for each story takes so long that you sometimes feel rather gypped on the heist itself. The characterization is also somewhat halfhearted; Raffles is certainly charming enough, but it's in a general sort of way, told more often than shown, and though he expresses strong opinions, they usually seem to be thrown in for the sake of expressing strong opinions, and they frequently contradict each other (for example, while Raffles apparently has a code of honor as a thief, he only cites it when he's breaking one of his own rules). His partner Bunny, meanwhile, has very little personality beyond his conflicted morals; I realize Bunny's struggle was deliberate to avoid glamorizing crime as an alternative lifestyle, but in a series intended to be light entertainment, there's only so much self-loathing you can throw in before it starts to drag things down a bit. For all that, though, the series is still a lot of fun, with all the capers quite varied and high-energy. There's a tension that's missing in Sherlock Holmes; we know Holmes and Watson will come through with no permanent damage and with justice upheld, but things can and do go very wrong for Raffles at times, and he and Bunny stand to lose everything if they get caught. Raffles is also surprisingly ruthless, and you can never tell quite how far he'll be willing to go if he feels threatened. Not my favorite entry into the Victorian/Edwardian "gentleman (insert profession here)" borderline-abusive buddy series genre, but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.
    • 2/5
      I don't care for this entire body of work. The Gentleman thug is best handled by Leslie Charteris and Simon Templar, in my opinion. But Raffles and his buddy Bunny are referred to by some. His heroic death in South Africa should be used by someone else in a fantasy time travel story. Hmmm....
    • 2/5
      This is more of a historical curiosity now as the stories aren't very exciting or clever.A.J. Raffles is a gentleman thief in late Victorian England whose main cover story of playing cricket allows him some outside excuse for travel. He has a sidekick named Bunny Manders who is the one documenting the stories. There is a main adversary as well in Inspector MacKenzie of Scotland Yard. If these parallels to Sherlock Holmes aren't enough for you, then you should also know that author E.W. Hornung was the brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle.The stories however usually involve simply quick and bold grabs without any particularly clever scheme, so in comparison to modern day heist thrillers this is pretty tame stuff. Still, it is interesting to see the anti-hero precedents being set here.For another early (c. 1900) gentleman thief series of books I'd recommend Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin series where the lead character is also quite charming and witty.
    • 1/5
      It is a long time since I have been this disappointed by a book. I had read often of the charms of Raffles and of how it was the forerunner of the very modern villain as protagonist. I had read that with Raffles the reader was allowed to see the other side of crime and find at last how such things were really done.Spoilers ahead.I found instead a painfully adolescent book which reads like a Pythonesque parody of a homosocial best boys story. At no point did I feel that the author, let alone Raffles, actually knew much about crime. Nor did I believe that the author knew (or perhaps more accurately cared) about the ways in which actual detectives functioned. Indeed the only thing I was convinced that Hornung knew and cared about was cricket.This first Raffles book is actually a collection of short stories of which the first is by far the most interesting since it sets out the circumstances of how and why Bunny decides to turn to a life of crime. Of course, Bunny does no such thing since he is, with a few exceptions, an reactor rather than an actor in these escapades. He and Raffles are no more and no less less upper middle-class wastrels. They have run through the money they inherited and make no attempt to actually earn any of their own. Indeed they despise and look down on anyone who works for a living. They even refuse to consider themselves working “rogues.” No, Raffles is an amateur rogue just as he is an amateur cricketer. They steal from those they despise and they betray the trust of those whose homes they stay in all the while providing themselves with lame justifications. Raffles lies to Bunny and Raffles betrays Bunny and in the end Raffles breaks Bunny’s heart not by leaving Bunny in lurch when finally the law catches up with them but by daring to find a woman more interesting than Bunny to spend time with.The last story is apogee of the ridiculous as not a single person aboard the cruise ship is anything but a broadly drawn stereotype. Raffles and Bunny prove their lack of understanding of the law by accepting without question the right of a English police officer to serve an English arrest warrant on them as they sail the Mediterranean aboard a German ship. In short, a book I found neither charming nor pleasant and one I would not recommend to anyone who enjoys a well crafted or a well written detective story.
    • 3/5
      My husband got a collection of ‘crime classics’ several months ago and has been working his way through them, in between reading other books. I don’t like to read his books until he’d read them but somehow I overlooked Raffles, by E.W. Hornung, when he finished with it. We can’t even remember exactly when it was that he read it, perhaps January/February time. It wasn’t until I was studying his bookshelf that I realised this. So when I’d finished with Inkheart I moved straight onto Raffles before I forgot it again.E.W. Hornung was heavily inspired by his brother-in-law, none other than Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. And it shows. Raffles and Bunny are really the polar opposites of Holmes and Watson, while Doyle’s creations were solving crimes, Raffles was committing them. It’s really easy to make connections between the characters. Bunny recounts his exploits with Raffles in much the same was as Watson does. Raffles is the brains of the operation, only partially filling Bunny in with the finer points when he deems it necessary.Raffles and Bunny are nowhere near Moriarty’s league of criminals though. Both are members of the wealthier classes who have fallen on hard times, mostly as a result of their own gambling and enjoying the high life. But there’s an element of the Robin Hood about them. They are happy to help out a friend who is in a similar situation to themselves and in trouble with a bit of a bad character. They don’t seem to get much out of the ventures mentioned in these stories, which I suppose is why they have to keep going back and stealing things again and again.Despite the fact that they are thieves and you shouldn’t really like them, they are surprisingly likeable. I mean, they’re villains, but they’re very nice villains. And if you think that Holmes and Watson seem a bit close at times, they’ve got nothing on Raffles and Bunny. Probably not helped by the fact that Raffles calls Bunny Bunny. I realise I’m being terribly immature here, but sometimes books written over a hundred years ago can be quite unintentionally funny.I did quite enjoy it, though some of the cricket references went rather over the top of my head. It was a nice quick read; I’ve come to quite enjoy reading books of short stories recently. In the last few years I’ve tended to choose novels over short story collections but there’s something very practical about short stories. You can read a couple before bed, one in your lunch break, whatever. Mr. Click prefers short story collections so we’ve got at least another five waiting on the bookshelf for him to read… three of which I might not wait for him to get to, they do look rather good.
    • 3/5
      Funny, engaging stories that remind me of P.G. Wodehouse. Light, but well worth the time, these "crime" stories are more about awkward social situations and shady misunderstandings than murder or mayhem.
    • 4/5
      This charming caper story follows Raffles and Bunny, two gentleman jewel thieves. Raffles is the anti-Holmes -- his cleverness is unmatched, though used for ill. Bunny is a somewhat reluctant accomplice at first, and is seems unsporting that he should be the one caught in the end. Still, a pleasant adventure story that seems as relevant in the 21st century as it did when published.
    • 3/5
      A quick read, through a series of interlinking short stories, which, unfortunately are not equally interesting. Will probably appeal to lovers of Sherlock Holmes. worthwhile example of 19th c literature for Y10+ lit students.
    • 1/5
      Ugh. SO BAD. Bunny is a moron, and Raffles is not a "gentlemen thief", he's a cad and a bounder - and not in the fun way.
    • 4/5
      E.W. Hornung's A. J. Raffles is an engaging anti-Holmes, a gentleman thief with a love of cricket and a chronicling side-kick, Bunny Danvers. Raffles and Bunny live the lives of gentlemen and support themselves by burglary. Hornung was Conan Doyle's brother-in-law and just as with Sherlock Holmes (and many detective to come) Bunny and Raffles' exploits are told through 16 short stories. Interestingly Hornung had spent some time in Australia and one story, told in flashback, is set entirely in the outskirts of colonial Melbourne. Enjoyable period piece.
    • 4/5
      A collection of 8 short stories which feature A.J. Raffles, gentleman, cricketer, and amateur cracksman, and his old school mate Bunny Manders, a bunny in most senses of the word. In the first story The Ides of March Raffles prevents Bunny who is constantly in debt, like Raffles, having no honest source of income, from committing suicide. The eight stories are narrated by Bunny, with the plots complicated by the fact that Raffles doesn't always keep him totally informed. At times Raffles uses Bunny as a decoy, and at times Bunny initiates action on his own because he thinks Raffles has failed. Of course Raffles never fails, and in the long run it is Bunny who pays most dearly.The stories depict Raffles as a master burglar, a gentleman, a sportsman who extends the code of cricket, of "playing fair", to thievery. He is much sought after because he is such a splendid cricketer, both at the bat and as a bowler, and various invitations give him the opportunity to relieve others of their riches. As with Conan Doyle's Holmes and Moriarty, Raffles has his principal opponent in Scotland Yard's Inspector Mackenzie. The Penguin blurb credits Ernest Hornung with creating " a unique form of crime story, where, in stealing, as in sport, it is playing the game that counts, and there is always honour among thieves".The stories in this collection: 1. The Ides of March. 2. A Costume Piece. 3. Gentlemen and Players. 4. Le Premier Pas. 5. Wilful Murder. 6. Nine Points of the Law. 7. The Return Match. 8. The Gift of the Emperor.So here we have the forerunner of a style of book that we thought was modern - where the villain is the central character. Although, unlike Jeff Lindsay's Dexter Morgan in DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER, or Simon Kernick's Dennis Milne, Raffles never kills.I think the text of the stories is a bit dated, the language a bit more formal than we use now, and certainly I noticed the odd word that is no longer part of our regular vocab. But in the late 19th century, these stories must have been a breath of fresh air. Hornung was Conan Doyle's brother in law, and whereas in Holmes vs Moriarty you have good vs evil, in Raffles you really have evil vs. good. Interestingly they both, Homes and Raffles, have rather lame sidekicks in Watson and Bunny.As you can see, I'm rather taken with the stories although I'm only rating it at 4.2.They won't be everyone's cup of tea. But they are short quick reads if you want to dabble or listen like I did.
    • 4/5
      Raffles is a unique depiction of a rogue burglar. The novel is one of style plus substance that succeeds in what Graham Greene would call "entertainment."
    • 3/5
      Well that was a rum little thing. Holmes and Watson as thieves written by Conan Doyle's brother-in-law. Only they're not terribly good. Raffles is far from perfect. He's a bit of a lunatic. Bunny contributes almost nothing. It's all a bit of a mess.

      And yet... the stories contain the bare-bones tropes if every heist movie and anti-hero thief story ever told.
    • 4/5
      Classic crime stories featuring the archetypal gentlemen thief A J Raffles and his assistant Harry "Bunny" Manders, set in a time when a gentleman would rather shoot himself in the head than suffer disgrace and exile from polite society.