Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Suicide Club begins with Prince Florizel of Bohemia searching London for adventure—and leads him into a secret society where despair, murder, and suicide have been transformed into a game.
In this Chesterton Radio University Deep Dive, we return to Stevenson’s original New Arabian Nights and listen to two very different radio interpretations: the 1954 Living Fiction production and the later CBS Radio Mystery Theater adaptation.
Along the way, we explore Prince Florizel, the sinister President of the Suicide Club, Stevenson’s strange mixture of comedy and darkness, and the story’s deeper questions about chance, friendship, honor, responsibility, despair, and the value of human life.
And we approach Stevenson from a Chestertonian direction. Perhaps the great enemy in The Suicide Club is not death at all, but ennui—the terrible conviction that the world has ceased to be interesting.
Stevenson answers with adventure. Chesterton might answer with wonder.
Two radio productions. One remarkable Victorian story. And a question that remains surprisingly modern:
What if the cure for being bored with life is learning to be astonished by it again?
The Suicide Club - Robert Louis Stevenson - Living Fiction
The Suicide Club - CBS Radio Mystery Theater
