Prince Zaleski.

First edition, number seven in Lane's Keynotes series. The Keynotes Series, comprising 33 novels and short story collections, was published in a distinctive format, featuring Aubrey Beardsley's cover designs and embellishments, by John Lane between 1893 and 1897; Beardsley produced the designs for 22 Keynotes volumes while he was working on The Yellow Book, which John Lane was also publishing. The Keynotes series shared a close relationship with the progressive literary trends of 1890s, emphasised by Beardsley's fashionable cover designs.

Prince Zaleski was Shiel's first novel contains three mysteries: "The Race of Orven", "The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks", and "The S.S.", each solved by an eccentric Russian nobleman who lives out his self-imposed exile within the half-ruined walls of a Welsh abbey. Shiel's bibliographer, A. Reynolds Morse, gives a colourful overview of the book: "In the first two stories, the detective solves the crimes without even leaving his couch, where he lies partially under the influence of drugs and surrounded by oriental bric-a-brac. Stylistically this... is not easy to analyze.... Shiel admits Poe's influence, but far outdistances him in the magic flight of a wholly original style" (Morse, pp 32-34).