Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: An African Millionaire

Author: Grant Allen

Narrator: Peter Joyce

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-28-11

Publisher: Assembled Stories

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Set against the international background of the late Victorian rich and privileged The African Millionaire is a far-fetched and farcical romp in which gullible Sir Charles Vandrift MP is slowly but steadily parted from his vast wealth by a series of confidence tricks and deceptions. Many and varied are the disguises of the perpetrator, a man revered amongst the criminal fraternity and even admired by police authorities in several countries: the redoubtable Colonel Clay, so called for his ability to mold his persona and blend in to any background.

As the story unfolds it becomes obvious that Vandrift is not the pillar of probity or propriety that we expect of a knight of the realm and that he may, indeed, be of less moral worth than his worthwhile adversary who protests that his deeds are guided by higher moral principles and values. Should Clay be caught, will the jury find him guilty? Despite the proselytising of the author, a man of strong political conviction, the story has an inspired lunacy which keeps it entertaining as it moves swiftly to the close and we are prompted to reflect on the responsibility of our fiscal administrators, their subsequent substantial rewards and the misery they can sometimes wreak amongst poorer mortals.

Critic Reviews:

"Peter Joyce is the most remarkable one-man band in audiobook publishing. Joyce, an experienced actor, reads them all himself." (The Independent)

Members Reviews:

Good story

A very pleasant read with a nice moral. I was duped at the beginning and gradually swayed by the end as the author intended.

Okay Adventure Stories

Pleasant way to pass the time, but nothing special.

DISGUISED AS A COLLECTION OF MYSTERIES, THIS IS A BOOK WITH A MESSAGE

In QUEEN'S QUORUM (1951), Ellery Queen mistakenly listed Grant Allen's AN AFRICAN MILLIONAIRE (1897) among the 106 most important books of crime short stories published since 1845, and many other critics have praised it as the first short story collection that focuses on the adventures of a rogue. In actuality, this book is a novel with 12 chapters that add up to an indictment of a group of men that the author, a progressive writer of the late 19th century, strongly disapproved of.

Although several of its chapters have been anthologized separately by modern editors as if they are short stories, many other chapters would be very unsatisfying if read as stand-alones--some because Colonel Clay (as the confidence man is usually called) plays little or no part in them; others because they have to do with the capture and trial of the confidence man. When read in their proper order, the 12 chapters form a connected whole and, especially towards the end, thrust upon the reader a "message" about the class of people that the African millionaire (the supposed victim) represents.

Like many novels written by Allen's contemporaries, who included Thomas Hardy, this book is "didactic" in the best sense. Specifically, it is an example of what Aristotle called "forensic rhetoric," detailing chapter by chapter the petty, sleazy, shady, and unscrupulous sides of a typical wealthy businessman of the late 19th century. Colonel Clay, the confidence man, is used by Allen as a minor rogue to show readers what the really big rogues are like.