The Complete Short Stories of Raffles by E W Hornung
Ernest William Hornung (1866-1921) was an English author. He spent most of his life in England and France, but in 1884 left for Australia and stayed for two years. Although his Australian experience had been so short, it coloured most of his literary work from A Bride from the Bush (1890), to Old Offenders and a Few Old Scores (1923) which appeared after his death. He published the poems Bond and Free and Wooden Crosses in The Times. 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). 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. His other works include: Dead Men Tell No Tales (1899), The Black Mask (1901), No Hero (1903), A Thief in the Night: A Book of Raffles' Adventures (1905) and Mr. Justice Raffles (1909).
E.W. Hornung 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. In 1898 he wrote In the Chains of Crime, which introduced Raffles and his sidekick, Bunny Manders; the characters were based partly on his friends Oscar Wilde and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, and also on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The series of Raffles short stories were collected for sale in book form in 1899, and two further books of Raffles short stories followed, as well as a poorly received novel. Aside from his Raffles stories, Hornung was a prodigious writer of fiction, publishing numerous books from 1890, with A Bride from the Bush to his 1914 novel The Crime Doctor. Although much of Hornung's work has fallen into obscurity, his Raffles stories continued to be popular, and have formed numerous film and television adaptations. Hornung's stories dealt with a wider range of themes than crime: he examined scientific and medical developments, guilt, class and the unequal role played by women in society. Two threads that run through a sizeable proportion of his books are Australia and cricket; the latter was also a lifelong passion. [source: Wikipedia]
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780140081558 |
| ISBN 10 | 0140081550 |
| Title | The Complete Short Stories of Raffles |
| Author | E W Hornung |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Year published | 1987-07-30 |
| Number of pages | 480 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |