Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, and Other Tales of Terror
The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with 'damnable young man' Edward Hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde's true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil. The other stories are Olalla, a tale of vampirism & tainted family blood, and The Body Snatcher, a gruesome account of the notorious Burke & Hare.
About Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Lewis (later: "Louis") Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh on 13 November 1850.
At the age of seventeen he enrolled at Edinburgh University to study engineering, with the aim - his father hoped - of following him in the family firm. However, he abandoned this course of studies and made the compromise of studying law.
He "passed advocate" in 1875 but did not practice since by now he knew he wanted to be a writer. In the university’s summer vacations he went to France to be in the company of other young artists, both writers and painters. His first published work was an essay called "Roads", and his first published volumes were works of travel writing.
A fortuitous turning-point in Stevenson’s life had occurred when on holiday in Scotland in the summer of 1881. The cold rainy weather forced the family to amuse themselves indoors, and one day Stevenson and his twelve-year-old stepson Lloyd drew, coloured and annotated the map of an imaginary "Treasure Island". The map stimulated Stevenson’s imagination and, "On a chill September morning, by the cheek of a brisk fire" he began to write a story based on it as an entertainment for the rest of the family.
Treasure Island (published in book form in 1883) marks the beginning of his popularity and his career as a profitable writer, it was his first volume-length fictional narrative.
He died in December 1894 and even shaped the manner of his burial: as he had wished, he was buried at the top of Mount Vaea above his home on Samoa. Appropriately it was a part of his own short poem, "Requiem" (from an 1887 collection), that was written on his tomb: "Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie..."
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