This is the complete review as it appears at my blog dedicated to reading, writing (no 'rithmatic!), movies, & TV. Blog reviews often contain links which are not reproduced here, nor will updates or modifications to the blog review be replicated here. Graphic and children's reviews on the blog typically feature two or three images from the book's interior, which are not reproduced here.Note that I don't really do stars. To me a book is either worth reading or it isn't. I can't rate it three-fifths worth reading! The only reason I've relented and started putting stars up there is to credit the good ones, which were being unfairly uncredited. So, all you'll ever see from me is a five-star or a one-star (since no stars isn't a rating, unfortunately).I rated this book WARTY!WARNING! MAY CONTAIN UNHIDDEN SPOILERS! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!I have to say that the title of this amused me – I mean how is it in any way complete it if it’s only volume one? And yes, I do know what they mean, but it’s still amusing to me.I ended up with this from the library having failed to get my hands any Sexton Blake – which I had decided I wanted to read after having heard it mentioned several times in a Phryne Fisher story. I found that I liked this, but only in small parts. A lot of it was uninspired and uninspiring. The thefts weren't really very thrilling, and nothing like as complex as the misdeeds in your average Sherlock Holmes story - from which era these stories also hale, so be warned it’s not everyone’s taste. If you’re into this kind of story (adult historical which was actually adult contemporary when it was written), then you might like this.EW Hornung was rather a prolific writer, and Arthur J Raffles, described as a gentleman cracksman – that is a thief - was perhaps his best known creation. How gentlemanly a thief could ever actually be is a matter for debate, but I guess Raffles fills the bill for some definitions at least. We meet him, as we meet Sherlock Holmes (to whom raffles came second in popularity in his own time), through the agency of his chronicler – a public school friend of his, who goes by the highly unlikely name of Bunny – which was no doubt quite likely in those days. His real name is Harry Manders.Note that in Britain, a public school is actually a private school such as Eton or Winchester, which is where Bunny “fagged” for him. Note that a fag in this context represents a sort of servant (or more accurately, a slave!) who would run errands and perform other chores for this superior, such as cleaning his shoes and even doing his homework for him. It has nothing to do with homosexuality, although in some cases it could have, I suppose!Raffles has other things in common with Holmes. At one point, he and Bunny are caught red-handed whilst committing a theft aboard a ship. That story is included in this volume. Raffles dives overboard to escape apprehension, and is presumed lost at sea, but after Bunny finishes his prison sentence, he discovers that Raffles is alive and well, and the second, and somewhat modified phase of their joint career is launched. That takes place almost literally half-way through this volume. At the end of this volume, Raffles is killed in the Boer war in South Africa, so god only knows what's included in volume two! raffles ghost stories?!The best stories for me were Nine Points of the Law, which was very much in the mold of a Sherlock Holmes story, although from the PoV of the thief of course, and the one which followed it, The Return Match. Both of these were rather different from the stories which came before, which all seemed to be centered on jewel thievery. In both of these stories, Raffles was acting to help someone, although what he was doing wasn’t really legal in each case! In the latter case, he wasn’t even getting paid for his actions, although he did feel he was repaying a debt, if not being blackmailed.One very much appreciated aspect of the stories is that Raffles doesn’t always get the job done, but despite that and some other bits and pieces I liked, overall these stories were tame and boring. They included very little atmosphere setting,and very little descriptive prose in terms of setting the scene. Most of it was simple conversations, in which Raffles is usually unnecessarily and tediously mysterious, and in describing, but in nowhere near enough detail, his exploits, so it was rather unsatisfactory all around for me. I can't recommend it.Roughly half the book takes us to where Raffles literally jumps ship. The second half takes up form where raffles disappears until he's killed in the Boer wars. What's in volume 2 I have no idea!One thing which both amazed and horrified me was how profligate these two villains were with their money. They have stolen jewels that they sold on for literally hundreds if not thousands of pounds. They stole other things too, and they retrieved a painting which netted them two thousand pounds each, yet they're always on their uppers, looking for the next opportunity to steal money? Where did it all go?!Two thousand pounds is a significant amount (for most of us!) in 2015. In 1915, one pound was worth roughly five dollars, so we're talking about ten thousand dollars, but that fails to address the buying power of money then as compared with now. According to Measuring Worth two thousand pounds in 1915 would be worth somewhere between 140,000 and a million today depending upon how it's calculated. Even if we take the lower of those two, it's still an inconceivable amount of money to wade through, especially back then - maybe five million dollars?!According to US News, In 1915, you could buy a house for three thousand dollars (=six hundred pounds). A car cost almost as much as a house! A decently-paid (by 1915 standards) woman would earn sixty pounds a year. A loaf of bread cost 7 cents, a dozen eggs 34 cents, a gallon of milk about the same as the eggs, and a pound of steak 26 cents (using the US News values) . What the heck were these guys doing with all their money?! And why should we feel any kinship with people who are so appalling wasteful and who actually help no one, especially not the common people. These guys were no Robin Hoods, let's face it!
In A.J. Raffles, author E.W. Hornung created a quintessential Victoria pulp hero. His prose is far too purple and his adventures far too rickety and cobbled together to ever achieve the literary greatness of his obvious literary model, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. But there is, nonetheless, something charming about the simplistic criminal capers Raffles and his faithful sidekick, Bunny find themselves involved in. Although, while it is admittedly fun to see the super-sleuth narrative formula turned on its head so that instead it is the thieves who are our protagonists, Doyle’s cleverness and therefore Holmes’s superhuman insight are sorely lacking, leaving Raffles and Bunny looking, rather frequently, like two bumbling adventurers.Although the ineptitude is rather charming. Much ado is made of all the successful schemes Raffles and Bunny pull off, although Bunny, the ostensible chronicler of their exploits, points out how boring it would be if he just wrote about all their easy jobs where nothing interesting happened. Instead, we are entertained with story after story of how Bunny screws up all their plans because Raffles is too arrogant to explain to Bunny what the plan actually is. The first half of this collection is filled with their failures and near-misses. At a late point in the book (which is really a collection of stories, albeit connected by an overall character arc), our anti-heroes come upon another Gentleman Thief who has taken up crime in honor of the Great Raffles. I wondered if he has been reading the same book as I had.The book’s saving grace is Hornung’s insistence that the duo’s failures have consequences. When something doesn’t go right, the effects often carry over to the next stories. And as the book crosses its half-way point, Raffles and Bunny begin facing truly serious adversity, which gives the plot a dramatic weight that makes up for their mediocre track-record as master criminals. The final story in this collection, which sees the pair off to South Africa to volunteer in the Boer Wars, abandons the light-hearted mood altogether, and focuses on the friendship and loyalty shared between the two men. In reading this final tale, it struck me that Hornung had managed to successfully ground these characters such that they were no longer just gimmicky Sherlock Holmes rip-offs.There is a reason A.J. Raffles isn’t as pervasive in popular culture as other Victorian adventure icons like Holmes and Nemo and Dr. Frankenstein. But this first volume of stories chronicling his exploits is a worthwhile journey into that world. And, general popularity aside, it should be noted that Alan Moore found Raffles worthy enough to join his League of Extraordinary Gentleman. So if that’s not endorsement enough for you, maybe Victorian pulp just isn’t for you.
Do You like book Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman (2003)?
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 them. Bunny, for his part, is about as clueless as Dr. Watson, and as in awe of Raffles as Watson was of Holmes.Fortunately, "Amateur Cracksman" compares favorably to the Holmes stories. The individual criminal adventures Raffles and Bunny embark upon are not as clever as even the least of the Holmes mysteries, but they're still good fun. The reader shouldn't try to solve the mysteries, as he or she would with a Holmes story (there's typically little to solve in the Raffles adventures, and the twists are usually easy to predict), but instead just go along for the ride.It's surprising that the Raffles stories are not better known and more widely read today, particularly given the enduring popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories. They certainly deserve more attention. It's a shame, though, that Hornung and his brother-in-law never collaborated to have Holmes solve a Raffles crime. Perhaps it's for the best: Raffles surely would have ended up in jail for good.
—Daniel
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.
—Alan
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 intelligence fails to impress. This is because of the next failing, the plot contrivances. There would be little conflict if Raffles and Bunny (Yes, those are their names) simply walked in, took what they wanted, and left, so Hornung creates unlikely obstacles for them to overcome. These inevitably end in them nearly being caught, which they usually manage to avoid through a second unlikely plot contrivance.This is one of those emperor has no clothes collections, a book so bad that one wonders how some poor fools are taken in by it, yet, as you can see by the other reviews here, many are. Readers who like this sort of thing, but lack discrimination, may well enjoy this book as much as so many others do. Those who understand how effective stories are put together will see these stories for the messes that they are.
—Mike Jensen
