A coming of age novel (first published in 1897), eventful on sea and on shore, with a crime and detection component.

E. W. Hornung was friendly with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and married his sister. He is best known for having taken his brother-in-law’s detective pair, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, and reincarnated them on the wrong side of the law as Raffles and Bunny, who pursued the business of getting a living by the entirely logical method of stealing it.

"It is story-telling of the most direct kind and holds the attention from the first page to the last. Mr. Hornung seems to us in each succeeding book from his pen to gain in confidence and authority, and we do not hesitate to place him among the first of the comparatively new writers who must be reckoned with" - Literature