#Jekyll feat of the monster within trial#

#Jekyll feat of the monster within trial#

According to author Jeremy Hodges, Stevenson was present throughout the trial and as 'the evidence unfolded he found himself, like Dr Jekyll, 'aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde'.' Moreover, it was believed that the teacher had committed other murders both in France and Britain by poisoning his victims at supper parties with a 'favourite dish of toasted cheese and opium'.Īs was customary, Mrs. Chantrelle, who had appeared to lead a normal life in the city, poisoned his wife with opium.

Inspiration may also have come from the writer's friendship with Edinburgh-based French teacher Eugene Chantrelle, who was convicted and executed for the murder of his wife in May 1878. I doubt if the first draft took so long as three days.' Louis came downstairs in a fever read nearly half the book aloud and then, while we were still gasping, he was away again, and busy writing. I remember the first reading as though it were yesterday. Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's stepson, wrote: 'I don't believe that there was ever such a literary feat before as the writing of Dr Jekyll. He said angrily: 'Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.' I had awakened him at the first transformation scene. Thinking he had a nightmare, I awakened him. In the small hours of one morning, I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis. Biographer Graham Balfour quoted Stevenson's wife Fanny Stevenson: 1888), he wracked his brains for an idea for a story and had a dream, and upon wakening had the intuition for two or three scenes that would appear in the story Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. According to his essay, 'A Chapter on Dreams' ( Scribner's, Jan.

In early 1884, he wrote the short story 'Markheim', which he revised in 1884 for publication in a Christmas annual. Henley and which was produced for the first time in 1882. While still a teenager, he developed a script for a play about Deacon Brodie, which he later reworked with the help of W. Stevenson had long been intrigued by the idea of how human personalities can reflect the interplay of good and evil. Science fictionPublisherLongmans, Green & Co.ĥ January 1886ISBN978-7-8Text Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde at Wikisource Title page of the first London edition (1886)ĪuthorRobert Louis StevensonOriginal title Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeCountryEnglandLanguageEnglishGenrePsychological thriller The novella's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the vernacular phrase 'Jekyll and Hyde' referring to persons with an unpredictably dual nature: outwardly good, but sometimes shockingly evil. It is about a London legal practitioner named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde. The work is also known as The Strange Case of Jekyll Hyde, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or simply Jekyll & Hyde. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1886.