Keysmith definition trial#
Keysmith definition series#

A number of later biographers have alleged that Stevenson was on drugs during the frantic re-write for example, William Gray's revisionist history A Literary Life (2004) said he used cocaine while other biographers said he used ergot. Stevenson rewrote the story in three to six days. Scholars debate whether he really burnt his manuscript there is no direct factual evidence for the burning, but it remains an integral part of the history of the novella. After a while, Robert called her back into the bedroom and pointed to a pile of ashes: he had burnt the manuscript in fear that he would try to salvage it, and thus forced himself to start again from nothing, writing an allegorical story as she had suggested. In her comments in the manuscript, she observed that in effect the story was really an allegory, but Robert was writing it as a story. Robert Stevenson was confined to bed at the time from a haemorrhage. Stevenson would read the draft and offer her criticisms in the margins. 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'.

Keysmith definition trial#

According to author Jeremy Hodges, Stevenson was present throughout the trial and as 'the evidence unfolded he found himself, like Dr. 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 an 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. 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 racked his brains for an idea for a story and had a dream, and upon waking had the intuition for two or three scenes that would appear in the story Strange Case of Dr. 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 William 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. The novella has also had a sizable impact on popular culture, with the phrase 'Jekyll and Hyde' being used in vernacular to refer to people with an outwardly good but sometimes shockingly evil nature. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is one of the most famous pieces of English literature, and is considered to be a defining book of the gothic horror genre. It is revealed at the end of the novella that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person, with Jekyll transforming into Hyde via an unnamed chemical concoction to live out his darker urges. Henry Jekyll, and a murderous criminal named Edward Hyde.

Keysmith definition series#

The novella follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. The work is also known as The Strange Case of Dr. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1886. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde at Wikisource