Mr. Justice Raffles

This early work by Ernest William Hornung was originally published in 1909 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. ''Mr. Justice Raffles'' is the fourth and last book featuring the charming A. J. Raffles. Unlike the three previous works, the book was a full-length novel and featured darker elements than the earlier collections of short stories. In it a jaded Raffles is growing increasingly cynical about British high society. He encounters Dan Levy, an unscrupulous moneylender, who manages to entrap a number of young men, mostly sons of the wealthy, by giving them loans and then charging huge amounts of interest. Raffles takes it upon himself to teach Levy a lesson. Ernest William Hornung was born in Middlesbrough, England in 1866. After working briefly as a journalist, and publishing a series of poems in The Times, Hornung created the character for which he is best-remembered: A. J. Raffles, a "gentleman thief" plying his trade in Victorian London.