Books with author E. W. Hornug

The Amateur Cracksman was the original short story collection by E. W. Hornung featuring his most famous character, A. J. Raffles, a gentleman thief in late Victorian Great Britain. It was first published in 1899. The book was very well received and spawned three follow-ups. Arthur J. Raffles is a prominent member of London society, and a national sporting hero. As a cricketer he regularly represents England in Test matches. He uses this as cover to commit a number of burglaries, primarily stealing valuable jewelry from the elite of London, for thrill and for profit. In this he is assisted by his friend, the younger Bunny Manders who idealizes Raffles as a sportsman. Both men are constantly under the surveillance of Inspector Mackenzie of Scotland Yard who is always thwarted in his attempts to pin the crimes on Raffles.

Arthur Raffles is a prominent member of London society, and a national sporting hero. As a cricketer he regularly represents England in Test matches. He uses this as a chance to commit a number of burgalries, primarily stealing valuable jewellry from his hosts. In this he is assisted by his friend, the younger, idealistic Bunny Manders. Both men are constantly under the surveillance of Inspector Mackenzie of Scotland Yard who is always thwarted in his attempts to pin the crimes on Raffles.

Excerpt from A Thief in the Night: Further Adventures of A. J. Raffles, Cricketer and CracksmanI pick my words with care and pain, loyal as I still would be to my friend, and yet remembering as I must those Ides of March when he led me blindfold into temptation and crime. That was an ugly ofiice, if you will. It was a moral baga telle to the treacherous trick he was to play me a few weeks later. The second offence, on the other hand, was to prove the less serious of the two against society, and might in itself have been pub lished to the world years ago. There have been private reasons for my reticence. The affair was not only too intimately mine, and too discreditable to Raffles. One other was involved in it, one dearer to me than Raffles himself, one whose name shall not even now be sullied by association with ours.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Ernest William Hornung (7 June 1866 – 22 March 1921) was an English author and poet known for writing the A. J. Raffles series of stories about a gentleman thief in late 19th-century London. Hornung was educated at Uppingham School; as a result of poor health he left the school in December 1883 to travel to Sydney, where he stayed for two years. He drew on his Australian experiences as a background when he began writing, initially short stories and later novels. Hornung’s prose is widely admired for its lucid-yet-simple style. Oliver Edwards, writing in The Times, considered that ”not the least attractive part of the Raffles books is the simple, plain, unaffected language in which each one of them is written”. The obituarist in the same newspaper agrees, and thinks Hornung had ”a power of good and clear description and a talent for mystery and surprise”. Colin Watson also considers the point, and observes that in Hornung’s writing, ”superfluous description has been avoided and account of action is to the point”, while Doyle admired his ”sudden use of the right adjective and the right phrase”, something the writer and journalist Jeremy Lewis sees as a ”flamboyant, Kiplingesque taste for the vivid”.

Hornung's gentleman thief made his first appearance in print in The Amateur Cracksman in 1899, a collection of tales succeeded by another short story series, The Black Mask, in 1901, and in 1905, a final series, A Thief in the Night. In the latter volume, Hornung, like several other authors before and since, decided to put an end to his own literary creation. He came closer to succeeding than Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes, L. Frank Baum with the land of Oz, or Ian Fleming with James Bond. In the final Raffles short story, partly out of patriotism, partly in expiation for his life of crime, A. J. enlists along with Bunny as soldiers in the Boer War, and during a battle, Raffles is shot by enemy fire. But four years later, in 1909, Hornung brought back his shady pair in Mr. Justice Raffles, a novel that like Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles is not a resurrection but a reminiscence, a postscript acknowledged as such in its final chapter.

Ernest William Hornung (7 June 1866 – 22 March 1921) was an English author and poet loved by many and held in high esteem amongst his fellow writers. This is a classic tale from Horning, exhibiting his brilliant writing style. Any profits made from the sale of this book will go towards supporting the Freeriver Community project, a project that aims to support community and encourage well-being. To learn more about the Freeriver Community project please visit the website- www.freerivercommunity.com

Excerpt from Mr. Justice RafflesAnd years to me! Cried Raffles. But surely you remember that. Lost tribesman at the next table, with the nose like the village pump, and the wife with the emerald necklace?About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Ernest William Hornung (1866-1921) 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 his death. Nearly two-thirds of his 30 published novels make reference to Australian incidents and experiences. Hornung returned to England in February 1886, and married Constance Aimée Monica Doyle (1868-1924), the sister of his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1893. The character of A. J. Raffles, a "gentleman thief," first appeared in Cassell's Magazine in 1898 and the stories were later collected as "The Amateur Cracksman" (1899). Other titles in the series include "The Black Mask" (1901), "A Thief in the Night" (1905), and the full-length novel "Mr. Justice Raffles" (1909). He also co-wrote the play "Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman" with Eugene Presbrey in 1903. After Hornung spent time in the trenches with the troops in France, he published "Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front" in 1919, a detailed account of his time there. Hornung died in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in the south of France on 22 March 1921.