A Thief in the Night

"Bunny" Manders is drawn to fill the void left by A. J. Raffles' absence at the end of The Black Mask with untold stories of the past adventures. These tales are perhaps ones that Bunny is most ashamed of, but among the regrets lie threads of future happiness.The public popularity of Raffles, fuelled by stage and film adaptations in the intervening years, lead to this continuation of his saga in 1905. A Thief in the Night, with the exception of the last two stories, is set in the same period as the events of The Amateur Cracksman. A Thief in the Night is a 1905 collection of short stories by E. W. Hornung. It was published in the UK by Chatto & Windus, London, and in the US by Scribner's, New York.

The stories feature Hornung's popular character A. J. Raffles. It was the third book in the series, and the final collection of short stories. In it, Raffles, a gentleman thief, commits a number of burglaries in late Victorian England. A full-length Raffles novel, Mr. Justice Raffles, would follow in 1909.

Overview

Chronicler and accomplice Bunny Manders narrates additional adventures which he had previously omitted, from various points in their criminal careers. All but the last two stories take place while A. J. Raffles and Bunny Manders are still respectable gentlemen and Raffles is still an amateur cricketer who lives in rooms at the Albany.

The two remaining stories take place after Raffles and Bunny become professional criminals of ruined reputations: the second last story follows after the events of "An Old Flame", and the final story takes place after the events of "The Knees of the Gods". All stories are largely self-contained and independent, with the exception of the last story, which serves as an epilogue to events explored in the first story. Each story was first published in serial format, except for "The Last Word" which is a short epilogue to the events of "Out of Paradise".