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Rating: 
Summary: The quintessential English "gentleman" thief
Review: Raffles rates with Sherlock Holmes: same period: turn of 19th/20th Century, very "English", albeit less of an eccentric than Holmes, but, as with those sherlock Holmes stories, the Raffles tales create a world of their own, close to but not quite the same as the real one of historical "fact". Where Raffles parts company from Holmes is in, of course, the fact that he is on "the other side", a thief, though a very stylish one and with all the acquired gloss of the English gentleman, a gloss tarnished a bit when he "nicks" stuff from houses in which he is a guest...hm...However, he is a patriot and an aesthete par excellence, as when he takes off with a priceless urn from the British Museum, only to keep it openly on his mantlepiece (until sending it as a present to, if I recall aright, the Queen!) (Victoria, that is). Regrettably neglected, Raffles deserves a revival.
Rating:
Summary: The quintessential English "gentleman" thief
Review: Raffles rates with Sherlock Holmes: same period: turn of 19th/20th Century, very "English", albeit less of an eccentric than Holmes, but, as with those sherlock Holmes stories, the Raffles tales create a world of their own, close to but not quite the same as the real one of historical "fact". Where Raffles parts company from Holmes is in, of course, the fact that he is on "the other side", a thief, though a very stylish one and with all the acquired gloss of the English gentleman, a gloss tarnished a bit when he "nicks" stuff from houses in which he is a guest...hm...However, he is a patriot and an aesthete par excellence, as when he takes off with a priceless urn from the British Museum, only to keep it openly on his mantlepiece (until sending it as a present to, if I recall aright, the Queen!) (Victoria, that is). Regrettably neglected, Raffles deserves a revival.
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