
Sure, you can root for Sherlock Holmes or Charlie Chan or Hugh Drummond. But I'll take a good old-fashioned rogue over the lot of 'em any day. Boston Blackie, A.J. Raffles, the Lone Wolf, Thubway Tham, Mr. Clackworthy, Arsene Lupin—they all hold a curious fascination, dabbling as they do in crime and punishment! So take a walk on the seamy side of the Victorian era. (And yes, we are cheating with the dates a little bit. But we wanted to include a few latter-day rogues whose adventures are in the spirit of their Victorian compatriots.) All told, it's more than 1,900 pages of great reading! Included The Adventures of Colonel Clay, by Grant Allen THE EPISODE OF THE MEXICAN SEER THE EPISODE OF THE DIAMOND LINKS THE EPISODE OF THE OLD MASTER THE EPISODE OF THE TYROLEAN CASTLE THE EPISODE OF THE DRAWN GAME THE EPISODE OF THE GERMAN PROFESSOR THE EPISODE OF THE ARREST OF THE COLONEL THE EPISODE OF THE SELDON GOLD-MINE THE EPISODE OF THE JAPANNED DISPATCH-BOX THE EPISODE OF THE GAME OF POKER THE EPISODE OF THE BERTILLON METHOD THE EPISODE OF THE OLD BAILEY THE COUNT'S CHAUFFEUR, by William Le Queux BOSTON BLACKIE, by Jack Boyle THE CHAIR OF PHILANTHROMATHEMATICS, by O. Henry THUBWAY THAM, by Johnston McCulley THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ARSENE LUPIN, GENTLEMAN-BURGLAR, by Maurice Leblanc THE LONE WOLF, by Louis Joseph Vance ALIAS THE LONE WOLF, by Louis Joseph Vance A ROGUE'S LIFE, by Wilkie Collins THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND SWAG, by Robert Barr JEFF PETERS AS A PERSONAL MAGNET, by O. Henry THE ASSASSINS' CLUB, by Gelett Burgess MR. CLACKWORTHY TELLS THE TRUTH, by Christopher B. Booth THE CLUE OF THE SILVER SPOONS, by Robert Barr JEM BINNEY AND THE SAFE AT LOCKWOOD HALL, by William Hope Hodgson A COSTUME PIECE, by E.W. Hornung CONSTANCE DUNLAP, by Arthur B. Reeve If you enjoy this book, search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see the 170+ entries in the MEGAPACK series, covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, westerns, classics, adventure stories, and much, much more!"
Authors

Such volumes as Cabbages and Kings (1904) and The Four Million (1906) collect short stories, noted for their often surprising endings, of American writer William Sydney Porter, who used the pen name O. Henry. His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language. Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. He left school at fifteen years of age and worked for five years in drugstore of his uncle and then for two years at a Texas sheep ranch. In 1884, he went to Austin, where he worked in a real estate office and a church choir and spent four years as a draftsman in the general land office. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him. He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him. In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras. Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves . In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling . In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York. In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. Cabbages and Kings came first in 1904 The Four Million, and The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West followed in 1907, and The Voice of the City in 1908, Roads of Destiny and Options in 1909, Strictly Business and Whirligigs in 1910 followed. Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed. People rewarded other persons financially more. A Retrieved Reformation about the safe-cracker Jimmy Valentine got $250; six years later, $500 for dramatic rights, which gave over $100,000 royalties for playwright Paul Armstrong. Many stories have been made into films.

Maurice Leblanc (1864 - 1941) was a French novelist, best known as the creator of gentleman thief (later detective) Arsène Lupin. Leblanc began as a journalist, until he was asked to write a short story filler, and created, more gallant and dashing than English counterpart Sherlock Holmes.

Johnston McCulley (February 2, 1883 – November 23, 1958) was the author of hundreds of stories, fifty novels, numerous screenplays for film and television, and the creator of the character Zorro. Many of his novels and stories were written under the pseudonyms Harrington Strong, Raley Brien, George Drayne, Monica Morton, Rowena Raley, Frederic Phelps, Walter Pierson, and John Mack Stone, among others. McCulley started as a police reporter for The Police Gazette and served as an Army public affairs officer during World War I. An amateur history buff, he went on to a career in pulp magazines and screenplays, often using a Southern California backdrop for his stories. Aside from Zorro, McCulley created many other pulp characters, including Black Star, The Spider, The Mongoose, and Thubway Tham. Many of McCulley's characters—The Green Ghost, The Thunderbolt, and The Crimson Clown—were inspirations for the masked heroes that have appeared in popular culture from McCulley's time to the present day. Born in Ottawa, Illinois, and raised in Chillicothe, Illinois, he died in 1958 in Los Angeles, California, aged 75. -wikipedia
