The Backstory: Gothic Horror: Giving Birth to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

A combination of fever dreams and cocaine led to one of the greatest horror stories of all time. Robert Louis Stevenson was dying of tuberculosis when he wrote “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” He almost trashed it, but after nine days of frantic writing he had defined the gothic novel and given us a metaphor for people with split personalities: Jekyll and Hyde.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, it's understandable you want to make a buck
off your talent, but at the same time you're battling
an incurable illness. The doctors keep telling you to give
it up and accept your fate. But you're only thirty
four years old, and you have a story to tell
that's really more than a story. This allegory comes to
you in a dream, You wake up, and you spend

(00:21):
three days writing it out while in and out of
these fever dreams, which incidentally have been fueled by cocaine.
But you push through and your story becomes one of
the greatest horror classics of all time. I'm Patty Steele
giving birth to Doctor Jekyl and mister Hyne. That's next
on the backstory. The backstory is back. A lot of

(00:48):
creative types say getting to the finished piece, whether it's
a novel, a play, a piece of music, or a painting,
even a podcast, is an awful lot. Like giving birth.
There's anxiety, pain, fear, and the need to fulfill expectations.
But then ah, the finished product. Robert Louis Stevenson, an

(01:09):
author back in the eighteen hundreds, went through an incredibly
painful birth process when it came to his classic eighteen
eighty six story, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and
mister Hyde. It was autumn of eighteen eighty five and Louis,
as he preferred to be called, suddenly woke up screaming.

(01:30):
His wife Fanny rushed into his bedside. She was terrified.
He was thrashing in the sheets, his eyes were wild,
and he was shouting about transformations and monsters. Fanny shook him, saying, Louis,
wake up, you're having a nightmare. He came too, but
he was furious with her. He shouted, why did you

(01:52):
wake me? I was having a fine dream, a monster story,
as he told her. But it was more than that.
He'd always been fast by the mix of good and
evil that's in all of us. So jekyline Hyde was
really a deeper look at the human mind. Lewis had
been sick pretty much his entire life, but he was

(02:12):
tenacious and so anxious to get this story on paper
that during the long process of dying from tuberculosis, he
wrote jekyline Hyde in just three days. It was a
relief to get it finished, but there was just one problem.
Fanny didn't like it. She felt it was a great story,
but told incorrectly that rather than just writing a horror story,

(02:35):
he should take a deeper look at what motivates both
good and evil in one person. He was upset, but
he really trusted her opinion. She was his first editor.
She left the room and when she came back she
saw a pile of ashes. He said he had burned
it because he didn't want to be tempted to use
any part of it. He wanted to start this story

(02:57):
all over again. He knew he was dying, although it
wasn't immediate, but he knew he had to get the
book written as quickly as possible, so he rewrote it
in six more days. Now, the thing is he was
probably high on cocaine while writing it. Cocaine had been
prescribed for his bleeding lungs, pretty common medication in those days.

(03:18):
Confined to bed, he continued to refine the story for
another six weeks or so. It was published in eighteen
eighty six and became one of the most famous horror
stories ever written. The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and
Mister Hyde focuses on doctor Henry Jekyl, a respected guy
who lives in London's West End, but he's spent his

(03:41):
life ashamed of what he calls his evil urges and desires.
He decides he's going to create a serum that will
allow him to separate the evil part of his personality,
which he refers to as Edward Hyde, from his true self.
Doctor Jekyl instead transforms into Hyde, and only the serum

(04:03):
will restore him to Doctor Jekyl. But the problem is
he likes the transformation because as Hide, he can do
things Jekyl would be ashamed of, so he continues to
take the potion, transforming back and forth. Eventually, mister Hyde
becomes too powerful, several people are killed, and investigators move in.

(04:26):
Scholars say the story is a perfect guide to the
Victorian mindset, outward respectability and inward lust. It shows that
when we push thoughts and desires into our unconscious mind,
it can kind of screw up our conscious mind. The
book was an instant sensation. Within six months, forty thousand

(04:48):
copies sold in Britain alone, and it became a best
seller in the United States as well. Within months, it
was adapted for the stage. Actors became famous for playing
mister Hide. One was so convincing as the monster that
some folks suspected him of being Jack the Ripper in
real life, who of course was terrorizing London at the

(05:10):
same time. The phrase jekylin Hyde became a permanent part
of the English language, describing anybody with a dual personality.
But Stevenson never really got healthy again. He spent the
rest of his life trying to ease his tuberculosis by
living in warmer climates. In eighteen eighty eight, he and

(05:30):
his family sailed to the South Pacific and eventually settled
in Samoa, building a house and living among the islanders,
and he kept writing Treasure Island kidnapped tons of essays
and short stories, but in the end tuberculosis took over.
On December third, eighteen ninety four, Stephenson was working on

(05:52):
a new novel when he suddenly collapsed. He died hours
later of a brain hemorrhage or stroke. He was forty
four four years old, but his most famous work lives on,
Written in nine days while sick in bed with fevers
and probably high on cocaine. The strange case of Doctor
Jekyll and mister Hyde defined Gothic horror and at the

(06:14):
same time created a name for human duality that we
still use today. Robert Louis Stevenson was buried on top
of a mountain in Samoa, overlooking the South Pacific Sea.
His tombstone is engraved with a poem he wrote specifically
for his grave, called Requiem. Here he lies where he

(06:35):
longed to be. Home. Is the sailor home from sea
and the hunter home from the hill. Hope you're enjoying
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Also feel free to dm me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty

(06:57):
Steele and on Instagram Real play Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
Our writer Jay Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday

(07:18):
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history
you didn't know you needed to know,