The doings of Raffles Haw Book

I really enjoyed this story and was impressed by the departure from Conan Doyle's usual style. The story is difficult to classify as it had elements of science fiction in it (alchemy and machines that dispensed coffee or wine at the press of a button and floors that receded into a pit), as well as romance, mystery and a moral theme. It closely adheres to the Victorian style of literature which I loved and it seemed that in it, Conan Doyle was striving to get a deeper idea of the motivations of his characters than he tends to do in his mysteries and sci fi. The overarching moral theme indicated that to try to help the social order of things would only upset it and make things worse, and was an interesting spin making large scale good works seem doomed to some twist of corruption. The science fiction element added to it made it similar in style to Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - it was similarly short as well - 147 pages of larger print making it a quick read in a couple of hours. I would highly recommend it as a sample of Conan Doyle's versatility.