A Jubilee Present
Encyclopedia
A Jubilee Present is a short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by Ernest William Hornung
Ernest William Hornung
Ernest William Hornung , known as Willie, was an English author, most famous for writing the Raffles series of novels about a gentleman thief in late Victorian London....

 featuring gentleman thief A. J. Raffles
A. J. Raffles
Arthur J. Raffles is a character created in the 1890s by E. W. Hornung, a brother-in-law to Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Raffles is, in many ways, a deliberate inversion of Holmes — he is a "gentleman thief," living in the Albany, a prestigious address in London, playing...

, originally published in the second collection of stories The Black Mask
The Black Mask
The Black Mask is the second collection of stories written by Ernest William Hornung in the A. J. Raffles series concerning a gentleman thief in late Victorian London...

 in 1901. When adapted for television in 1977 the title was changed to The Gold Cup.

The plot concerns Raffles's fascination with a priceless gold cup, on display at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

. Despite heavy security, Raffles and his accomplice Bunny Manders
Bunny Manders
Harry Manders is a character in the popular series of Raffles novels by E.W. Hornung. He is the faithful companion of Raffles, a cricketer and gentleman thief, who makes a living robbing the rich in late Victorian British High Society.Whereas Raffles is sharp-witted and cynical, the younger Bunny...

 manage to steal the cup and evade an attempt to recover it by the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...

. To Bunny's great surprise however, rather than melt the cup down and sell it, Raffles posts the cup to Queen Victoria as a tribute – a present to mark her Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee
A Golden Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 50th anniversary.- In Thailand :King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch, celebrated his Golden Jubilee on 9 June 1996.- In the Commonwealth Realms :...

.

In the television adaptation, a subplot is inserted about a society of criminologists, taken from The Criminologists' Club
The Criminologists' Club
The Criminologists' Club is a short story by Ernest William Hornung featuring A.J. Raffles from the 1905 collection A Thief in the Night.Raffles encounters a society of crime experts, who call themselves The Criminologists'. They take an interest in a number of crimes, especially the series of...

another Raffles short story.
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