The Black Mask by E. W. Hornung
Sep. 11th, 2019 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeAnd we're back to Raffles :D
The Black Mask (1901) is the second collection of Raffles stories, and it's much darker and more serious than the first set of thrilling adventures. Not that there aren't any slightly silly adventure plots here—there are—or that there weren't any serious moments in The Amateur Cracksman, but the overall mood is quite different, and reading all the books in sequence (rather than powering through all the Raffles stories in the space of a couple of months, like I've done before) oddly highlights that difference more. Despite its much more questionable attitude to Victorian morality, I can see how this book was written at the same time as Peccavi.
Other things:
I think this is the first time Italy has appeared as a major setting (not counting its cameo in 'The Gift of the Emperor'); Hornung had travelled there in 1898 and is clearly still happily, and very successfully, using his experiences of different places to inform his writing.
The poetry and beauty of Hornung's writing always seems to be at its best when he's writing as Bunny, and there are some absolutely lovely little pieces of description and evocative emotion in this book,especially towards the end of 'The Knees of the Gods', hahahahahaaa.
The Black Mask (1901) is the second collection of Raffles stories, and it's much darker and more serious than the first set of thrilling adventures. Not that there aren't any slightly silly adventure plots here—there are—or that there weren't any serious moments in The Amateur Cracksman, but the overall mood is quite different, and reading all the books in sequence (rather than powering through all the Raffles stories in the space of a couple of months, like I've done before) oddly highlights that difference more. Despite its much more questionable attitude to Victorian morality, I can see how this book was written at the same time as Peccavi.
Other things:
I think this is the first time Italy has appeared as a major setting (not counting its cameo in 'The Gift of the Emperor'); Hornung had travelled there in 1898 and is clearly still happily, and very successfully, using his experiences of different places to inform his writing.
The poetry and beauty of Hornung's writing always seems to be at its best when he's writing as Bunny, and there are some absolutely lovely little pieces of description and evocative emotion in this book,
