ABPress

From suburbia and skyscraper scrawl to the open prairies and 'local color', slum life to rural idyll: reprinting American and British literary classics.

The Amateur Cracksman
E. W. Hornung

£6.00

E. W. HORNUNG’s gentleman criminal creation A. J. Raffles was a milestone in British detective fiction. Based on his friend George Cecil Ives, who was a talented cricketer and criminologist, Raffles was the antidote to Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective hugely popular at the time (Horning had married Conan Doyle’s sister and had encouraged Hornung inches endeavours). They were both masters of disguise and riddles, but Holmes was logic in technical motion, raffles was whimsy in fantastical grace. And, of course, Hornung presented the criminal in a positive light. If any fictional character was Raffles’ model, then it was Stevenson’s Long John Silver, the villain who was really the hero.

BRITISH RETRO SERIES : BR06
C format paperback (216mm x 135mm)
gatefold cover, 160pp

cover design by Alexandra Andries