Raffles stories and adaptations


is a British fictional character - a cricketer and gentleman thief - created by E. W. Hornung, who, between 1898 and 1909, wrote a series of 26 short stories, two plays, and a novel about him and his fictional chronicler, Harry "Bunny" Manders.
The first story, "The Ides of March", appeared in the June 1898 edition of Cassell's Magazine. The early adventures were collected in The Amateur Cracksman and continued with The Black Mask. The last collection, A Thief in the Night and the novel Mr. Justice Raffles tell of adventures previously withheld. The novel was poorly received, and no further stories were published.
Hornung dedicated the first collection of stories, The Amateur Cracksman, to his brother-in-law, Arthur Conan Doyle, intending Raffles as a "form of flattery." In contrast to Conan Doyle's Holmes and Watson, Raffles and Bunny are "something dark, morally uncertain, yet convincingly, reassuringly English."
Raffles is an antihero. Although a thief, he "never steals from his hosts, he helps old friends in trouble, and in a subsequent volume he may or may not die on the veldt during the Boer War." Additionally, the "recognition of the problems of the distribution of wealth is recurrent subtext" throughout the stories.
According to the Strand Magazine, these stories made Raffles "the second most popular fictional character of the time," behind Sherlock Holmes. They have been adapted to film, television, stage, and radio, with the first appearing in 1903.

Plot

The "Raffles" stories have two distinct phases. In the first phase, Raffles and Bunny are men-about-town who also commit burglaries. Raffles is a famous gentleman cricketer, a marvellous spin bowler who is often invited to social events that would be out of his reach otherwise. "I was asked about for my cricket", he comments after this period is over. It ends when they are caught and exposed on an ocean voyage while attempting another theft; Raffles dives overboard and is presumed drowned. These stories were collected in The Amateur Cracksman. Other stories set in this period, written after Raffles had been "killed off", were collected in A Thief in the Night.
The second phase begins some time later when Bunnyhaving served a prison sentenceis summoned to the house of a rich invalid. This turns out to be Raffles himself, back in England in disguise. Then begins their "professional" period, exiled from Society, in which they are straightforward thieves trying to earn a living while keeping Raffles's identity a secret. They finally volunteer for the Boer War, where Bunny is wounded and Raffles dies in battle after exposing an enemy spy. These stories were originally collected in The Black Mask, although they were subsequently published in one volume with the phase one stories. The last few stories in A Thief in the Night were set during this period as well.
Raffles was never quite the same after his reappearance. The "classic" Raffles elements are all found in the first stories: cricket, high society, West End clubs, Bond Street jewellersand two men in immaculate evening dress pulling off impossible robberies.

Characters

A. J. Raffles

Raffles is, in many ways, a deliberate inversion of Holmeshe is a "gentleman thief", living at 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.

Bunny Manders

Bunny Manders, a struggling journalist, is Watson to Raffles' Holmes, his partner and chronicler. They met initially at school and then again on the night Bunny intended to commit suicide after writing bad cheques to cover gambling debts. Raffles, also penniless, but thriving, persuaded Bunny to join him instead.

Inspector Mackenzie

The most notable recurring character in the stories aside from Raffles and Bunny is Inspector Mackenzie, a Scottish detective from Scotland Yard. Mackenzie is an adversary to Raffles and appears in "Gentlemen and Players", "The Return Match", "The Gift of the Emperor", and Mr. Justice Raffles. He is first mentioned in "A Costume Piece" and is also referenced by name in "The Chest of Silver". He is probably the "canny man at Scotland Yard" mentioned in "The Rest Cure".
Mackenzie was based on Melville Leslie Macnaghten, the Chief Constable of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, according to Richard Lancelyn Green. Owen Dudley Edwards wrote that the character Inspector MacDonald in The Valley of Fear seems to have been inspired by Inspector Mackenzie.
Though Mackenzie only directly appears in four of the Raffles stories, he is used as a more major character in several adaptations of Raffles, for example the 1977 television series Raffles. There are a few other minor recurring characters in the Raffles stories, such as the rival thief Crawshay, who appears in two early stories and is mentioned in "The Chest of Silver".

List of stories

The Raffles stories include three short story collections and one novel. Most of the short stories appeared in magazines before being published in book form.
  1. "The Ides of March", first published in June 1898 in Cassell's Magazine.
  2. "A Costume Piece", first published in July 1898 in Cassell's Magazine.
  3. "Gentlemen and Players", first published in August 1898 in Cassell's Magazine.
  4. "Le Premier Pas", first published in this collection.
  5. "Wilful Murder", first published in this collection.
  6. "Nine Points of the Law", first published in September 1898 in Cassell's Magazine.
  7. "The Return Match", first published in October 1898 in Cassell's Magazine.
  8. "The Gift of the Emperor", first published in November 1898 in Cassell's Magazine.
  1. "No Sinecure", first published in January 1901 in Scribner's Magazine.
  2. "A Jubilee Present", first published in February 1901 in Scribner's Magazine.
  3. "The Fate of Faustina", first published in March 1901 in Scribner's Magazine.
  4. "The Last Laugh", first published in April 1901 in Scribner's Magazine.
  5. "To Catch a Thief", first published in May 1901 in Scribner's Magazine.
  6. "An Old Flame", first published in June 1901 in Scribner's Magazine.
  7. "The Wrong House, first published in September 1901 in Scribner's Magazine.
  8. "The Knees of the Gods", first published in this collection.
  1. "Out of Paradise", first published in December 1904 in Collier's Weekly.
  2. "The Chest of Silver", first published in January 1905 in Collier's Weekly.
  3. "The Rest Cure", first published in February 1905 in Collier's Weekly.
  4. "The Criminologists' Club", first published in March 1905 in Collier's Weekly.
  5. "The Field of Philippi", first published in April 1905 in Collier's Weekly.
  6. "A Bad Night", first published in June 1905 in Pall Mall Magazine.
  7. "A Trap to Catch a Cracksman", first published in July 1905 in Pall Mall Magazine.
  8. "The Spoils of Sacrilege", first published in August 1905 in Pall Mall Magazine.
  9. "The Raffles Relics", first published in September 1905 in Pall Mall Magazine.
  10. "The Last Word", shorter than the other stories, first published in this collection.

Film

There have been numerous films based on Raffles and his adventures, including: