Meet Sherlock Homes' Opposite
"Why should I work when I could steal?"
Why is Raffles so Great?
Raffles at one time was nearly as famous as it's author's brother-in-law's Sherlock Holmes but has since fallen into near obscurity. Why is a mystery as Raffles is a very entertaining, subtly subversive, anti-hero. He's an unrepentant gentleman thief who enjoys getting away with his crimes.Raffles is in many ways an inversion of Sherlocke Holmes, he's a master of disguise, has a very close confidant and chronicler Bunny Manders, and uses his skills for crime rather than the solving of them.
Raffles Links
- Browse By Author: H - Project Gutenberg
- Books by E.W. Hornung
- LibriVox : The Amateur Cracksman, by E.W. Hornung
- LibriVox recordings are Public Domain in the USA. If you are not in the USA, please verify the copyright status of these works in your own country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright laws.
- Raffles The Amateur Cracksman
- Raffles The Amateur Cracksman was written by E.W. Hornung, and was later made into a number of films, with Yorkshire TV producing a TV Series in the mid 70s. This page contains a biography of E.W. Hornung, plus some of Hornung's verse, images from the TV series and descriptions of Raffles films.
- George Orwell: Raffles and Miss Blandish
- Raffles and Miss Blandish, the review of George Orwell. First published: October 1944 by/in Horizon, GB, London
- RAFFLES | A TELEVISION HEAVEN REVIEW
- Preserving the history of classic television shows both past and present, including your favourite comedies, sci-fi, adventure and drama...plus: Television history, the all-time TV greats...the A to Z of tv shows...classic tv clips and an online dvd shop. Love TV? Spend some time in heaven...
- A.J. Raffles
- A.J. Raffles was a gentleman, an ex-public school lad who had continued into London's High Society as an adult, living in the Albany (Albany Court, St.James' in London), being a member of the best clubs, and playing cricket for England. However a trip to "the Colonies" changed the direction of his life forever. Finding himself broke, he overcame whatever moral qualms he might have had and engaged in some larceny to survive, only to find the excitement of theft addictive: "I'd tasted blood, and it was all over with me. Why should I work when I could steal? Why settle down to some humdrum uncongenial billet, when excitement, romance, danger, and a decent living were all going begging together."
- Raffles: The Gentleman Burglar, by Mary Reed.
- Arthur "A. J." Raffles meets his future biographer Harry "Bunny" Manders when at half past midnight a semi-hysterical Bunny returns to A. J.'s rooms at the Albany to ask for funds to cover cheques written for money lost gambling at baccarat earlier that evening. Bunny's financial embarrassment is such he's been selling furniture from his flat in fashionable Mount Street and he goes so far as to threaten suicide.
A.J. Raffles at a Glance
Arthur J. Raffles is a character created in the 1890s by E. W. Hornung, a brother-in-law to Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Raffles is, in many ways, a deliberate inversion of Holmes ? he is a "gentleman thief," living in the Albany, a prestigious address in London, playing cricket for the Gentlemen of England and supporting himself by carrying out ingenious burglaries. He is called the "Amateur Cracksman," and often, at first, differentiates between himself and the "professors" ? professional criminals from the lower classes.
As Holmes has Dr. Watson to chroni...
Raffles' Adventures
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byA.J. Raffles Videos
Clips from the television series with Anthony Valentine and Christopher Strauli
About the Author
Ernest William Hornung (7 June 1866 ? 22 March 1921)Stephen Knight, 'Hornung, Ernest William (1866 - 1921)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9, MUP, 1983, pp 369-370. Retrieved 5 August 2009, known as Willie, was an English author, most famous for writing the Raffles series of novels about a gentleman thief in late Victorian London.
Hornung was born in Middlesbrough, England, the third son
and youngest of eight children of John Peter Hornung, who was born in Hungary. Ernest Hornung was educated at Uppingham School during some of the later years of its great headmaster, Edward Thring. Hornung spent most of his life in England and France, but in December 1883 left for Australia, arrived in 1884 and stayed for two years where he worked as a tutor at Mossgiel station in the Riverina. Although his Australian experience was brief, it coloured most of his literary work from A Bride from the Bush published in 1899, to Old Offenders and a few Old Scores, which appeared after hi...
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Chat about Raffles.
GypsyPirate wrote...
What a great introduction to a "dastardly" character I am sure I will enjoy!
Posted August 02, 2008
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