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Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman

(A.J. Raffles, The Gentleman Thief #1)

E.W. Hornung,

Richard Lancelyn Green (Editor)

3.61 · Rating details · 2,033 ratings · 216 reviews

Gentleman thief Raffles is daring, debonair, devilishly handsome-and a first-rate cricketer. In these eight stories, the master burglar indulges his passion for cricket and crime: stealing jewels from a country house, outwitting the law, pilfering from the nouveau riche, and, of course, bowling like a demon-all with the assistance of his plucky sidekick, Bunny.

Encouraged ...more

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Paperback, 240 pages

Published August 26th 2003 by Penguin Classics (first published 1898)

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Start your review of Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman (A.J. Raffles, The Gentleman Thief #1)

Oct 28, 2012 Maureen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

the idea of raffles, the gentleman thief, obverse of the legendary sherlock holmes, gentleman detective (the creation of hornung's esteemed brother-in-law arthur conan doyle), thrills me. and i can't say i don't normally adore the idea of working outside the law to balance the scales of justice -- i watch timothy hutton's modern-day robin hood crew on leverage as often as possible. there is no doubt that raffles is in some ways the progenitor of this type of character but in reading the book i the idea of raffles, the gentleman thief, obverse of the legendary sherlock holmes, gentleman detective (the creation of hornung's esteemed brother-in-law arthur conan doyle), thrills me. and i can't say i don't normally adore the idea of working outside the law to balance the scales of justice -- i watch timothy hutton's modern-day robin hood crew on leverage as often as possible. there is no doubt that raffles is in some ways the progenitor of this type of character but in reading the book i realized the only redress was being made to "the cracksman"'s pocket. before reading this collection of stories, i had visions of hutton's character nate ford, and the great french character arsène lupin or baroness orczy's scarlett pimpernel but instead found raffles anticipating leopold and loeb:

"A matter of opinion, my dear Bunny; I don't mean it for rot. I've told you before that the biggest man alive is the man who's committed a murder, and not yet been found out; at least he ought to be, but he so very seldom has the soul to appreciate himself. Just think of it! Think of coming here and talking to the men, very likely about the murder itself; and knowing you've done it; and wondering how they'd look if they knew! Oh, it would be great, simply great!" - from "Wilful Murder"

much has been made of the fact that raffles has a code -- he does not murder; he only steals when he has need. as it turns out raffles doesn't actually subscribe to the code he lays out -- he seems to make excuses for lapses of conduct often, perhaps revealing how little it means -- see the story quoted above for a revision of his "no murder" rule, or "A Costume Piece" for how he decides to go ahead with a robbery which won't alleviate his financial constraints but simply for the challenge. it would seem that the victorians would identify with the idea that crime was understandable if it prevented one from quitting their "rightful" sphere, and for those who stood a high moral ground hornung introduced the misgivings of bunny (his sidekick and former fag at public school) as a balance to raffles' complete lack of ethics.

as members of the unmonied upper class, both raffles and bunny are part of Society and are terrified to lose their standing (though not so much so that they quit the gambling and the tailors that have brought them low) in the class system they so adore. but when i shake it out, all i can see is that raffles is a dated sociopath cricket player, who will not quit his sphere despite his inability to afford it and is a relic of the deep divide in classes as much as cricket and the public school system. i was woefully misapprehended regarding the character of raffles -- i expected that this much ballyhooed code was real, that raffles' choices might result from some reflection, be difficult to arrive at, or borne of something i could more easily identify with, instead i found him to be a character completely ingrained in the class system: entitled, selfish, and grasping. i don't say that this makes raffles less of an interesting character but he's no raskolnikov either. i don't feel any sense of conflict or even engagement when he embarks on a plan, or a concern for his well-being because his motivations don't mean a thing to me -- or to him, either, it seems. his friend bunny is the loyal dimwit who assists him in schemes which brings me to what i liked least about the raffles stories: the mode in which the action is delivered.

in the majority of these stories raffles conceives of a plan of action and does not share its details with bunny. we are then left to hear him relate to bunny the plan after the fact, an issue that bunny himself points out:

"Then you should have let me know when you did decide. You lay your plans, and never say a word, and expect me to tumble to them by light of nature. How was I to know you had anything on?"

i really didn't like this device at all and the revelation of the plan was never so exciting or elaborate in the recitation that i gave up my resentment. i found the structure of the stories boring -- a lot of exposition, and when they are actually engaged in action it's often of a boring sort: for example, in one tale, bunny is awakened to sounds of a struggle and tasked with holding a suspect while the scotland yard detective who has nabbed the competitor thief goes after the others. bunny stands there holding the suspect. there's a lot of talk. he holds him some more. hooey! hold me back from this gripping story!

i can say i found his prose very clean, and the dialogue charming -- just overused in exposition. i was going to give the book only two stars but seeing as it gave me lots to think about in terms of what not to do with structure and characterization, and really is the precursor to so many other gentleman thieves that i am in debt to hornung for his contribution to the archetype, and so the collection gets three stars on those merits though i don't know how long that shall stick.

N.B. before anybody takes my analysis of raffles and his lack of morals as evidence that i just don't like books with amoral characters, i'll say when reading this i thought of how much more i loved bertie woosters attempts at stealing a cow creamer, o. henry's pastiche of shamrock jolnes, not to mention his tales of burglars and thieves, and how engaged i was in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer despite the repugnance of the main character.

bonus review material for the literary detectives out there: the george orwell essay that is quoted liberally whenever raffles is discussed is actually a comparative book review he wrote in 1944. it is available online here: http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/chas...
i myself appreciated the opportunity to read orwell's commentary on raffles in context -- most of the time only a line or two is referenced, and usually makes it seem like orwell thought hornung a genius. on my own reading, i see that orwell did find interest in raffles relationship to english society especially in his relationship to cricket, and that he liked the book more than the one he was comparing it to. it seems to me that he thought the book good for its small lights, and was not quite as overpowered by it as critical essays and reviews who cite him would have one believe. :)

...more

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Aug 28, 2010 Jacob rated it really liked it

Shelves: doyle-and-friends, i-own, 2010-2011, short-fiction, mystery-crime-adventure-etc, recommended-by-michael-sims

January 2011

Good news, Americans! You don't have to know anything about cricket to read and enjoy this!

Meet A. J. Raffles: gentleman, independent bachelor, London man-about-town, champion cricketeer--er, cricketman--I mean, player-of-cricket--and...thief? Surely not! Surely so: how else could this gentleman of leisure afford to play poor man's baseball--I mean, cricket, sorry--whenever he likes? One must make money somehow, God wot, and Raffles' way is only slightly more dishonest than others. ...more

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Dec 01, 2011 Wealhtheow rated it liked it

Shelves: historical

Raffles and Bunny are two young gentlemen with large debts and no desire to work for a living. They turn to crime, specifically burglary, to continue to live their lives of idle luxury. The stories are clearly inspired by and partially parodies of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Raffles is cold, logical, and nigh-superhuman. Bunny is dim enough that the reader gets the pleasure of knowing more than he does and sniggering at all that he misses. It's got some casual racism typical of its time, and no ...more

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Sep 06, 2015 Nancy rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, 2015-read, audiobooks-2015

An utterly delightful romp; more fun than Holmes.

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Jun 15, 2008 Scott rated it liked it

Shelves: victorian, london, 1890s, crime

The embodiment of fin de siècle decadence, dashing A. J. Raffles artfully commits crime for crime’s sake. Bored with life as a master cricketer, Raffles turns to a life of crime to stifle his ennui – and pad his purse. His conscience-bitten sidekick, Bunny, accompanies him as he burgles Victorian London’s rogues, ruthless, and “rich and undeserving.” In the eight short stories that make up Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (1899), E. W. Hornung creates an anti-Sherlock Holmes – a character who ...more

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Jan 16, 2019 Tony rated it it was ok

Well enough written but absolutely mind-numbing. Raffles is a dick and Bunny is caught in his headlights.

Written as an anti-hero with his brother-in-law's real hero in sight (Holmes), I can only suggest he failed miserably to redress the balance.

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Dec 10, 2014 Laura rated it liked it

Shelves: e-books, gutenberg, short-stories, adventure, british-literature, vintage-crime, fiction-19th-century, audio-books, victorians, read-2018

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

From BBC Radio 4Extra:
Bunny is surprised and pleased to be invited by Raffles to share the latter's self-imposed 'rest cure' in a large house in Kensington.

But Raffles, needless to say, has his own somewhat nefarious reasons for wanting to take a holiday...

Starring Jeremy Clyde as AJ Raffles, Michael Cochrane as Bunny Manders, Christopher Benjamin as Colonel Crutchley, Laurence Payne as the Porter and Norman Bird as the Cabby.

EW Hornung's Raffles ...more

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Oct 24, 2016 Stephen Robert Collins rated it it was amazing

Sherlock Holmes was written by Conan Doyle but his brother in law got sick of him & his ego going and on about Holmes so he decided to put pen to paper but instead of dective he created a Robin Hood style anti hero Raffles

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Oct 23, 2017 Margaret added it

Did not finish.

A. J. Raffles must be just about THE most annoying character ever created. Narcisistic, and borderline psychopathic. And Bunny is a snivelling little wimp.

Managed two and a half stories before throwing in the towel.

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Oct 29, 2017 Patrick Murtha rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A.J. Raffles periodically re-surfaces as a classic character of popular fiction, and just as quickly drops out of sight again, exactly as E.W. Hornung frequently describes him doing in the 26 short stories and single novel that he devoted to Raffles - about half the output that Arthur Conan Doyle produced about Sherlock Holmes. Hornung, famously, was married to Conan Doyle's sister, and patterned his stories of the gentleman thief and champion cricketer Raffles, and his sidekick Bunny Mander, A.J. Raffles periodically re-surfaces as a classic character of popular fiction, and just as quickly drops out of sight again, exactly as E.W. Hornung frequently describes him doing in the 26 short stories and single novel that he devoted to Raffles - about half the output that Arthur Conan Doyle produced about Sherlock Holmes. Hornung, famously, was married to Conan Doyle's sister, and patterned his stories of the gentleman thief and champion cricketer Raffles, and his sidekick Bunny Mander, after the Holmesian example, while inverting the moral system. Conan Doyle was flattered and praised the stories, but was also troubled by them: "You must not make the criminal a hero."

Of course, it's exactly this inversion that has always provided Raffles' fascination. Should we root for him or not? Hornung comes up with ways for us to do so rather painlessly, but still, it's a dicey business. Each new Raffles story you read raises the issue all over again, and that, obviously, is an awfully good fictional hook.

The Raffles - Bunny relationship is also, in a different sense, "inverted" - a whole lot gayer than the Holmes - Watson partnership. Hornung was friendly with Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, and is said to have based his duo partly on them. In the first Raffles story, "The Ides of March," a distinctly down-on-his-luck Bunny Mander is actually contemplating suicide over some gambling debts, but his old schoolmate Raffles persuades him that criminality is sometimes a better course of action than giving into depression. To become Raffles' partner-in-crime for the rest of the series, Bunny has to get off on shared improper behavior, and boy does he:

I'll do it again...I will...I'll lend you a hand as often as you like! What does it matter now? I've been in it once. I'll be in it again. I've gone to the devil anyhow. I can't go back, and wouldn't if I could. Nothing matters another rap! When you want me I'm your man.

If no sexual interpretation occurs to you while you are reading that, you have a cleaner mind than mine.

The first 16 Raffles stories were collected in two volumes of eight stories apiece, The Amateur Cracksman (1899) and The Black Mask (1901). Wordsworth Classics reprinted all these in one volume, Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman, in 1994, and it was in this form that I read and was delighted by them.

These first two volumes of Raffles stories are decidedly different, because at the end of the first, Raffles disappears and Bunny is packed off to prison. Their adventures after their reunion in the second collection cannot have the same carefree tone as before, and indeed do not, a fact that some decried as a diminution of the original impulse, but which I simply read as fictional development. Things have to happen in stories, as in life, and in good fictional series, the author follows through on the consequences of them happening.

Raffles comes to a rather improbable glorious end fighting in the Boer War in the last of these 16 stories, and when Hornung decided to revive the character with 10 more stories in A Thief in the Night in 1905, and a single novel Mr. Justice Raffles in 1909, he didn't "bring him back to life" a la Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Empty House," but set the stories in a period before Raffles' demise a la The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Raffles has been incarnated by at least 13 actors on screen and television, including John Barrymore, Ronald Colman, and David Niven. Anyone who can play elegant-but-larcenous has been eligible. Cary Grant would have worked. ...more

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Nov 19, 2008 Daniel rated it liked it

Recommended to Daniel by: Rose

Shelves: 2008, books-deserving-rediscovery

It would be impossible to read "The Amateur Cracksman" -- the first of E.W. Hornung's books featuring gentleman thief A.J. Raffles and his sidekick and chronicler Bunny -- without comparing it to the Sherlock Holmes books. Hornung, after all, was Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law, and he created Raffles as something of a reversal of Holmes -- a character as cunning as the famous detective, and as much a master of disguise, but prone to using his ingenuity to commit crimes rather than solve ...more

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Jul 28, 2019 DeAnna Knippling rated it really liked it

A gentleman thief who is no gentleman!

I'd read a couple of other classic gentleman-thief books (Lupin, Phantomas), so I was expecting something similar. Nope. These are the stories of how two men-about-town slide down the slippery slope of crime, with no pretense of solving crimes or stealing from the rich to give to the poor. There's acid to the stories--as if we were reading the modern stories of how a famous sports figure and a famous journalist, presumed to be wealthy on the basis of their ...more

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Jun 19, 2010 Yngvild rated it it was amazing

Shelves: adventure

Raffles is such an appealing character that it is a wonder that no other writer has quite captured his spirit. He is one of a class of well-educated young nineteenth-century swells, fit for earning no living, having apparently inherited no fortune, yet expected to live like gentlemen of means.

In an earlier age, younger sons or the sons of impecunious gentlemen would have ridden off to the Crusades, or crept into poor livings as clergymen. By the Victorian age, growing numbers of such boys had ...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Michael P. rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Where to start? These stores are a sort of reverse Sherlock Holmes. The protagonist, a thief, takes the man who chronicles his adventures with him on his capers, and these stories are set in roughly the same time period and in mostly similar places. Whereas, however, Doyle wrote with wonderful flare and style, E. W. Hornung does not. The lines are flat and unengaging. Raffles is no Holmes. Though both share a penchant for keeping their friend in the dark in order to surprise the reader, his ...more

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Feb 13, 2017 Leothefox rated it liked it · review of another edition

Raffles and Bunny are buddies! They are buddies with a complex setup though, since A.J. Raffles lead his old school chum Bunny (our narrator) into a life of “amateur” crime which forever complicates their lives. If nothing else, this is an interesting window into late 19th century England, where high class men gambled away everything they had and would rather steal than resort to work.

Like many have pointed out, this is very like Holmes and Watson's dynamic, only applied to thieves rather than ...more

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Jan 25, 2018 m. rated it liked it

bunny is definitely in love with raffles.

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Jun 11, 2017 Jeff Johnston rated it liked it

I certainly liked the idea portrayed by Horning (Raffles 'The Gentleman Thief'), however for me there was never enough content, intrigue or character building of the protagonists within each internal affair.

This was the first story from an Omnibus 'The Collected Raffles'. Hopefully, the next couple stories will deliver more.

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Sep 08, 2017 Andrew Logan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is an adventure. This is nonsense. This is (mainly) fun. It is limited and absurd. It is more a view of how people liked to imagine their society (as a place where people like this might exist) than it is a book that gives a view of a society as it once was.

This edition has a wealth of footnotes, most of which seem right and useful (and some of which are one or the other and some, I think, neither).

Definitely worth a look. Weak ending but overall very much a good read.

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Nov 11, 2012 Carly rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, golden-age-mystery

**edited 02/02/14

The Raffles stories are basically the British version of Arsene Lupin: they feature a hyperintelligent Sherlock Holmes-like character who uses his skills to transgress the law rather than defend it. Raffles' adventures are rather more serious and straightforward than the often spoofy escapades of Lupin and his nemesis "Holmlock Shears." Like the Holmes stories, Raffles' adventures are narrated by a loyal and rather less intelligent sidekick. However, narrator Bunny Manders ...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Rosemary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A.J. Raffles is a gentleman thief and first class amateur cricket player. With the narrator, his sidekick known as Bunny, he uses his position in society to liberate valuables from their owners.

Hornung was Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law. The book is dedicated to Conan Doyle and these stories certainly owe something to him, although Raffles is on the other side of the law to Holmes.

The stories are fun and Raffles is an engaging character. From time to time he has to justify his dubious ...more

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Aug 02, 2007 Kay rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, victoriana, ripping_yarns

E.W. Hornung was Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law, and although he is not nearly as well known as that luminary, he was quite popular in late Victorian and Edwardian times. Raffles is his most successful book, a collection of tales of a gentleman thief. The title character is dashing and debonair, not to mention a first-class cricket player. (Think David Niven as the Pink Panther and you've got an idea.) He steals jewels from foppish rich folk and outwits the slow-on-the-uptake law at every ...more

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Apr 18, 2019 Mariano Zomeño rated it it was amazing

Two queer, bohemian victorian thieves stealing from the unlawfully rich to live away from society? Sign me up!

The history of these stories is, in itself, quite telling: written by Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law, they were made to be a "dark reflection" of the detective and his faithful doctor: instead of siding with the law, they make their own and follow a life of crime.

But, even then, the result was far from dark. We do not find two murderers, or violent criminals. Instead, the result is ...more

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Jan 11, 2016 Rachel Francis rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I read the first story of the book, and was around half way through the second before I decided to give up - this book is irritatingly dull. Though the stories are short, Hornung still manages to pack them with hyperbole and filler; in fact the content of the plot could easily fit on one page. The rest of each story (the first two, at least) is filled with the narrator's constant surprise and shock at the less-than-shocking protagonist, Raffles. The exclamation marks, generously decorating each ...more

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Sep 22, 2011 Travis rated it liked it

Shelves: classics, mystery

Always had a soft spot for the various gentlemen adventurers/detectives/thieves of the late 1800's/early nineteen hundreds.
They were fun, living in a world of leisure, adventure, wealth and charming women that is no more realistic than Ian Flemming's England or pulp novels set in the old west.

The two big gentlemen thieves of the time were Raffles and Lupin.
While Lupin was the better of the two, more suave and tricky, Raffles had a reliable sidekick, a more low key style and was steeped in ...more

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Feb 27, 2016 Julie Davis rated it liked it

E.W. Hornung dedicated this collection stories to his brother-in-law, Arthur Conan Doyle. That makes any comparison fair game between the team of Holmes and Watson to this pairing of Raffles and Harry "Bunny". The main difference is that Raffles is a burglar, helped by his sidekick Bunny. Bunny is often clueless about Raffles' plans and also reluctant to help. It isn't really very gentlemanly, you know. However, he definitely needs cash and isn't going to take a job, so he burgles alongside his ...more

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Oct 10, 2008 Terence rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, mysteries-noir, short-story-collections

A friend of mine introduced me to Raffles during my graduate-school days (daze?) at UCLA. EW Hornung was the brother-in-law of Conan Doyle; and Raffles, the criminal counterpart to Holmes (though Hornung "redeemed" him in his final adventure, gallantly defending the Empire).

Raffles is not as striking a character as Holmes and his companion (Bunny) is not Dr. Watson but the stories are entertaining.

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Dec 06, 2012 Leticia Supple rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime

I love Raffles and his offsider Bunny. These guys are to crime what Sherlock Holmes is to solving crime! Interesting that the author, E.W. Hornung, was also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's son-in-law; so it makes it extra-special in those stories where Raffles and Holmes come face-to-face. When you know this, the entire thing seems like a family joke.

I'm not going to go into detail; suffice to say, that if you haven't read Raffles, you must. Your life is incomplete if you haven't.

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Nov 21, 2016 Daniel Sevitt rated it liked it

Shelves: short-stories

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.

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Dec 26, 2013 Gina Dalfonzo rated it liked it · review of another edition

Entertaining -- if not exactly moral -- tales of a gentleman burglar . . . written by Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law! (It's a great pity they never got together and wrote "Sherlock Holmes Meets Raffles.") One can make a case that the stories effectively satirize the values of turn-of-the-century British society -- but even so, they're still pretty amoral.

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Mar 27, 2013 Sylvester rated it liked it

Shelves: audio-book, adventure, 2013

2.5* Enjoyable, light reading.(All comparisons to Sherlock fall flat in my opinion, though. Raffles is not a counterpart to the great detective - Moriarty already fills that bill.)I had expected the stories to be more complicated because of the comparison, but they're of a lighter tone altogether.

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About E.W. Hornung

E.W. Hornung

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Ernest William Hornung known as Willie, was an English author, most famous for writing the Raffles series of novels about a gentleman thief in late Victorian London.

In addition to his novels and short stories Hornung wrote some war verse, and a play based on the Raffles stories was produced successfully. He was much interested in cricket, and was "a man of large and generous nature, a delightful ...more