We sometimes forget that pulp fiction didn’t only exist in the U.S. Pulp fiction and its equivalents existed in other countries in the early 20th century. Pulp works from the U.S. appeared in them, and stories and characters in other countries were often carried over and translated, or new stories were created, sometimes after the original stories ended. Many very popular characters appeared around the world, some of which appeared in other countries, some not.
A hugely popular character in foreign pulp fiction was Lord Lister, also known as Raffles, Master Thief. Surprisingly, Lord Lister has never appeared in English. Until now.
The character was created in Germany in 1908 by Kurt Matull and Theo Blankensee. Kurt had experience writing and translating Nick Carter stories. (Nick was an early U.S. dime novel hero who was published around the world and later became a pulp hero and men’s adventure series character. I’ll get to him soon.) Theo had written unauthorized Sherlock Holmes stories, including the ones that would later become Harry Dickson. The German series lasted 110 weekly issues until 1910. Issues have been reprinted several times since.
John C. Raffles, Lord Edward Lister, seems named after A.J. Raffles, the well-known British “gentleman thief” who was created in 1898. Which may be one of the reasons he never appeared in English. A real English lord, he becomes a master of disguise and a thief for a few reasons. First it seems for the fun of it, as being a thief would be more challenging than being a detective. Then it seems it’s more to take from those who stole from others, as we learn his parents had their fortunes taken from them by a stock swindler. So Lister goes after such people, having created the John Raffles identity. This makes him more of a Robin Hood type, similar to other gentlemen-thieves. He also tweaks the nose of Scotland Yard, and in the first story, Sherlock Holmes chooses not to help, as he seems to enjoy seeing them being embarrassed by Raffles.
Lord Lister appeared in many other countries. In Denmark, they produced over a hundred stories. In France, his name was changed from John C. Raffles to John C. Sinclair, supposedly due to potential issues over A.J. Raffles. And in Dutch, they produced hundreds more Lord Lister stories after translating the German version. Robert Hans van Gulik, who created the Judge Dee stories, contributed several stories to the series.
Finally, thanks to Joseph Lovece, we have a translation into English of the first Lord Lister story, “The Great Unknown” in his Dime Novel Cover series (previously covered here). Here Raffles has been in action for about a year. We learn from him thanks to the comments from others, as he saves a girl from a lecherous businessman, then helps the girl’s mother from a corrupt banker (while also taking the banker’s records, so that those in debt to him are freed from it). All the while he tweaks the nose of Scotland Yard, though foolishly allowing his identity as Lord Lister to be exposed as he takes off for Europe. In the story we also meet his long-time assistant, Charles Brand. I do wonder if the girl, who seems interested in Lister/Raffles, will be his love interest. The German series ends with him getting married. No idea if it’s to her.
It will be interesting to see if more Lord Lister stories are translated into English, from any language. He is one character I am a little surprised that hasn’t been used in Black Coat Press’s “Tales of the Shadowmen” series.
The real Raffles was created by E.W. Hornung, who, ironically enough, was Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law!
Yup, and supposedly Conan Doyle wasn’t happy about that.
At some point will be doing a posting about A.J. Raffles. He’s used a bit in “Tales of the Shadowmen”.