Mrs. Raffles; R. Holmes & Co.;
• AND •
Four Bonus Stories
By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS (1862–1922)
ILLUSTRATIONS BY Albert Levering (1869–1929); Peter Newell (1862–1924); Edward Penfield (1866–1925)
=============
The contents of this book were first published 1899 through 1908. Text and illustrations are in the public domain in countries where the copyright term is “Life+90” or less, and in the USA.
=============
###
Mrs. Raffles (1905)
The widow of A. J. Raffles (the gentleman thief conceived by E. W. Hornung), continues the family legacy of crime—but in America. Her adventures are narrated by her confederate and former suitor, Harry “Bunny” Manders, the devoted friend and accomplice of her late husband.
###
R. Holmes & Co. (1906)
If a master detective sired a son with the daughter of a gentleman thief… The story begins by pitting Sherlock Holmes against criminal mastermind A. J. Raffles. Holmes falls in love with Raffles’ daughter, and their son Raffles Holmes, now grown, possesses the talents and tendencies of both sides of the family tree.
###
Editor’s Appendix (1899–1908)
For readers whose appetites have been whetted for more Holmes parody: three stories taken from other Bangs books, and a brief extract from a newspaper piece.
=======================
John Kendrick Bangs (May 27, 1862 – January 21, 1922) was an American author, humorist, satirist, editor, and lecturer. Between 1884 and 1906, he worked as editor at a number of magazines, among them
Life,
Munsey’s,
The New Metropolitan, the Harper’s magazines, and the foremost humor magazine of its day,
Puck. A highly popular and prolific writer, he had more than sixty books published.
He wrote extensively in the genre of “Bangsian fantasy,” concerning famous fictional or historical individuals and their interactions in the afterlife.
=======================
Texts and illustrations were obtained from the Internet Archive and the Library of Congress. OCR and printer’s errors were silently corrected; punctuation, diacritics, and italics formatted; some spelling and punctuation normalized. Illustrations manually cleaned and enhanced. Illustrations by Sydney Adamson (1872–1958) have been omitted due to copyright restrictions.
Story headers are cross-linked to individual Tables of Contents.
Versions available WITH and WITHOUT illustrations.
Enjoy!
This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws.
If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.
To report a copyright violation you can
contact us here.