FIRST BOOK EDITION OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON'S THE BODY-SNATCHER, 1895, IN ORIGINAL CLOTH

STEVENSON, Robert Louis. The Body-Snatcher. New York: Merriam, (1895). 12mo, original violet cloth.

First book edition of Stevenson's classic horror tale, with four engraved plates, in lovely original cloth.

This creepy tale of a body-snatching anatomist was inspired by the story of a real-life anatomist, Robert Knox. Knox was a legitimate—though racist—anatomist. He was, however, a central player in the Burke and Hare murders, which captivated Georgian Scotland for roughly 10 months during 1828. In the early 1800s, anatomy was finally coming into its own as a science. Robert Knox, in particular, held wildly popular lectures in which he dissected cadavers and opined on matters anatomical. Unfortunately, the supply of cadavers was insufficient to meet demand. Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare discovered a lucrative business opportunity when they came into a possession of a dead boarding house tenant who had died of natural causes. The men wasted no time selling the body to the dissection trade and walked away with a tidy sum—over a thousand dollars in today's money. Obviously, Burke and Hare could not count on more lodgers dying. They had no choice but to hurry along the process. Thus, Burke and Hare became serial killers and invented a method called "burking." They lured their 16 victims from various places, served them alcohol to make them easier to handle, and (generally) suffocated them. There did break the back of one victim, but claimed to feel rather bad about it. Knox, the anatomist, purchased all of the bodies. By the time Stevenson used this story, the tale had lost much of the immediacy but fears of body-snatching and "resurrectionists" remained in collective memory. Stevenson was free to fictionalize and dramatize at will. His less gory and more suspenseful novella is presented here as the second volume in Merriam's Violet Series (hence the unusual violet cloth binding). Stevenson's horror yarn was later adapted into a 1945 film starring Boris Karloff. This work was written in 1881 and first appeared in the 1884 Pall Mall Christmas Extra. This is the first book edition. Prideaux 43. Beinecke 608.

A few spots of soiling to interior, only slightest rubbing to beautiful original cloth. A nearly fine copy.