The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), son of a joint-engineer to the Board of Northern Light-houses, was born in Edinburgh. He was admitted advocate in 1875, but had determined to be a writer. Fascinated by Edinburgh low life, he cultivated a Bohemian style. His first work of fiction, “Treasure Island” (1883) brought him fame, which increased with the publication of “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (1886). This was followed by his popular Scottish romances “Kidnapped” (1886), “Catriona” (1893) and “The Master of Ballantrae”(1889). In 1888, Stevenson had set out with his family entourage for the South Seas, and finally settled in Samoa at Vailima, where he temporarily regained his health but died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage, while working on his unfinished masterpiece “Weir of Hermiston” (1896). He suffered from a chronic bronchial condition (possibly tuberculosis). “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”(1886). Dr Jekyll is a physician who discovers a drug by means of which he can create a separate personality, Mr Hyde, which absorbs all his evil instincts and gradually gains the greater ascendancy.

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