Crime · Adventure
The Amateur Cracksman
Raffles is a gentleman, a star cricketer and the most elegant jewel thief in London.
Five levels, about 80 languages
- A2ElementaryShort sentences and everyday words.
- B1IntermediateYou follow clear stories about familiar things.
- B2Upper intermediateLonger sentences, richer vocabulary.
- C1AdvancedClose to the original, lightly condensed.
- C2ProficientThe complete novel.
One purchase is one book, in one language, at one level: $4.99. Another level of a book you own is $1.99. Editions nobody has asked for yet are written on request: chapter 1 in a few minutes, the rest while you read. How the levels work.
About the book
Holmes, inside out
A. J. Raffles has everything a London gentleman needs: rooms in the Albany, a place in the best society and a famous talent for cricket. What he lacks is money. One night his old school friend Bunny Manders, ruined by gambling debts, comes to him in despair, and Raffles reveals how he really pays his bills. From then on Bunny is his assistant, and his narrator. E. W. Hornung, Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law, published these eight stories in 1899 and dedicated them to “A. C. D.” The joke is plain: Raffles and Bunny are Holmes and Watson on the other side of the law.
Why it works for learners
Each story is a single caper, short and self-contained: a necklace at a country house, a millionaire’s diamonds, a pearl aboard a ship. That makes them easy to read in one sitting. Bunny is a nervous, admiring narrator who tells you exactly what he feels, and Raffles’s cool, ironic talk is a pleasure to follow. The vocabulary is high society and crime: club, dinner, cricket, jewel, safe, lock, police, alibi.
Which level to start at
B1 for the plots, B2 for the wit. Some 1890s slang and a few cricket terms are tricky even for native readers today; a tap shows what each means in context. C1 and C2 bring out Hornung’s elegant style.
Read next
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the originals Raffles turns upside down
- The Innocence of Father Brown, whose Flambeau is another gentleman thief
- The Scarlet Pimpernel, another society man with a secret life