STOLEN MOMENTS

The antics of the gentleman thief in EW Hornung's 'Raffles' bring Anthony Quinn as much joy as when he was a child.

- Anthony Quinn

I see from the inscription in my Penguin paperback that it was bought on holiday in Ilfracombe, summer of 1976, so I must have been 12. Raffles was a joy to me then and, unlike other books of my youth, a joy still. The attraction of EW Hornung’s character, who first appeared in 1899, was that he led not just a double but a triple life. To the public eye, AJ Raffles was a man about town, with rooms at the Albany, a reputation for charm, and a taste for scotch and Sullivan cigarettes. He was also a brilliant cricketer, “perhaps the very finest slow bowler of his decade”, according to his devoted friend and chronicler, Bunny Manders.