Ernest William Hornung (1866-1921) was an English author, best known for the Raffles series of novels about a gentleman thief in late Victorian London. This volume is illustrated by photographs from the 1930 film version.

Arthur J. Raffles is a character by E. W. Hornung. He is a gentleman thief, living in a salubrious part of London, playing Cricket and supporting himself through his ingenious burglaries. He has a sidekick called Harry "Bunny" Manders who is brave and loyal, frequently saving the day. Raffles is a master of disguise imitating accents flawlessly. This book contain all the Raffles stories, enjoy Hornung's unique crime stories, where, in stealing as in sport, played by a devilishly handsome and charming master. The Amateur Cracksman (the early period, in which Raffles really is an amateur thief) The Black Mask (after Raffles's and Bunny's exposure) (U.S. title: Raffles: Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman), A Thief in the Night, Mr. Justice Raffles (novel).

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.

Gentleman thief Raffles is daring, debonair, devilishly handsome-and a first-rate cricketer. In these 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 by his brother-in-law, Arthur Conan Doyle, to write a series about a public school villain, and influenced by his own experiences at Uppingham, E. W. Hornung created a unique form of crime story, where, in stealing as in sport, it is playing the game that counts, and there is always honor among thieves. The Complete Story - All four books in one volume.

If I must tell more tales of Raffles, I can but back to our earliest days together, and fill in the blanks left by discretion in existing annals. In so doing I may indeed fill some small part of an infinitely greater blank, across which you may conceive me to have stretched my canvas for the first frank portrait of my friend. The whole truth cannot harm him now. I shall paint in every wart. Raffles was a villain, when all is written; it is no service to his memory to glaze the fact; yet I have done so myself before to-day. I have omitted whole heinous episodes. I have dwelt unduly on the redeeming side. And this I may do again, blinded even as I write by the gallant glamour that made my villain more to me than any hero. But at least there shall be no more reservations, and as an earnest I shall make no further secret of the greatest wrong that even Raffles ever did me.

It is finished, said the woman, speaking very quietly to herself. "Not another day, nor a night, if I can be ready before morning " She stood alone in her own room, with none to mark the white-hot pallor of the oval face, the scornful curve of quivering nostrils, the dry lustre of flashing eyes. But while she stood a heavy step went blustering down two flights of stairs, and double doors slammed upon the ground floor. It was a little London house, with five floors from basement to attic, and a couple of rooms upon each, like most little houses in London; but this one had latterly been the scene of an equally undistinguished drama of real life, upon which the curtain was even now descending. Although a third was whispered by the world, the persons of this drama were really only two.