R. L. Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer born November 13, 1850. His parents were Margaret Isabella Balfour and Thomas Stevenson. Margaret Isabella Balfour came from a family of lawyers and church ministers. Thomas Stevenson, an engineer, came from a family of well known engineers who built most of the deep sea light houses around the coast of Scotland.

Stevenson’s mother was often very ill, and much of his education was left to his nurse, Alison Cunningham, whom Stevenson often referred to as "Cummy." Cummy was very religious and taught Stevenson extreme Calvinist doctrine. Stevenson was also sickly like his mother and this religious education helped him persevere through his times of sickness, although he later became agnostic.

Stevenson attended the University of Edinburgh to follow the family tradition and study engineering. He eventually compromised with his father, saying that he would study law despite his true ambition to become a writer. In 1875, Stevenson passed the Scottish bar but did not practice. Instead, he spent time pursuing his goal of becoming a writer and traveling to France to live a Bohemian lifestyle. His first works described traveling in France and his experiences there.

In 1876, he began a romantic relationship with a cougar named Fanny Osbourne, who was married with two children. In 1879, she divorced her husband and married Stevenson in 1880. Funded by Stevenson’s father, the couple spent a good deal of time traveling. Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1885. Stevenson wrote the first draft in three days, but he later destroyed it after Fanny criticized it for being a piece of sensational literature rather than a masterpiece. The second draft, the one that we are reading, is not as good as the first according to Stevenson.
In 1888, the Stevenson’s hired a yacht and sailed to the Polynesian Islands. In 1890 they settled in Samoa, where Stevenson would die in 1894.


 
Victorian Cultural Perspective:

In the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mr. Hyde visits the slum area of Soho to pursue his desires. Because of Darwin’s widely accepted theories on evolution, many Victorians (especially those of the upper class) believed that devolution or degeneration was possible and that areas of town like Soho, with their venues for sleazy entertainment and wide-spread prostitution, were evidence of the degeneration of the human race. Victorians would see characters like Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll, civilized white British males, at the pinnacle of the evolutionary hierarchy. On the other hand, they would consider the character Mr. Hyde, with his savage nature, as a lower form of existence.

This is the full movie. Fast forward to 24:53 minutes to watch Dr. Jekyll transform into Hyde.




Stevenson’s influence on Modern Culture:

Stevenson’s ideas of dual nature have influenced our modern film and literature. The Incredible Hulk, Batman, the movie Hide and Seek, and others are evidence of Stevenson’s influence. Click on the link to see the similarities in the transformations.