THE SUICIDE CLUB and THE RAJAH'S DIAMOND by Stevenson, Robert Louis - 1894

1894. A New Edition with Eight Illustrations by W.J. Hennessy. London: Chatto & Windus, 1894. 32 pp ads dated Sept 1894. Original black cloth decorated in red. First Illustrated Edition of these two groups of mysterious tales involving detectives -- that had originally constituted the first volume of NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS (1882). "The Suicide Club" is actually three loosely-connected detective cases: "Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts," "Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk" and "The Adventure of the Hansom Cabs." Similarly, "The Rajah's Diamond" follows a valuable diamond through four separate (unpleasant) adventures, ultimately requiring the ingenuity of a detective. Although this edition came out just a few months before RLS's death in Samoa, these tales are actually among his earliest -- written in the late 1870s, when they first appeared in a periodical. This 1894 edition was undoubtedly prompted by the success of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes cases, which had just appeared and been a big hit. This is a near-fine copy -- of a Stevenson title that is none-too-common. Beinecke 149.