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Speaker 1: All right, it's understandable you want to make a buck

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Speaker 1: off your talent, but at the same time you're battling

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Speaker 1: an incurable illness. The doctors keep telling you to give

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Speaker 1: it up and accept your fate. But you're only thirty

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Speaker 1: four years old, and you have a story to tell

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Speaker 1: that's really more than a story. This allegory comes to

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Speaker 1: you in a dream, You wake up, and you spend

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Speaker 1: three days writing it out while in and out of

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Speaker 1: these fever dreams, which incidentally have been fueled by cocaine.

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Speaker 1: But you push through and your story becomes one of

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Speaker 1: the greatest horror classics of all time. I'm Patty Steele

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Speaker 1: giving birth to Doctor Jekyl and mister Hyne. That's next

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Speaker 1: on the backstory. The backstory is back. A lot of

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Speaker 1: creative types say getting to the finished piece, whether it's

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Speaker 1: a novel, a play, a piece of music, or a painting,

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Speaker 1: even a podcast, is an awful lot. Like giving birth.

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Speaker 1: There's anxiety, pain, fear, and the need to fulfill expectations.

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Speaker 1: But then ah, the finished product. Robert Louis Stevenson, an

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Speaker 1: author back in the eighteen hundreds, went through an incredibly

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Speaker 1: painful birth process when it came to his classic eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty six story, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and

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Speaker 1: mister Hyde. It was autumn of eighteen eighty five and Louis,

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Speaker 1: as he preferred to be called, suddenly woke up screaming.

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Speaker 1: His wife Fanny rushed into his bedside. She was terrified.

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Speaker 1: He was thrashing in the sheets, his eyes were wild,

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Speaker 1: and he was shouting about transformations and monsters. Fanny shook him, saying, Louis,

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Speaker 1: wake up, you're having a nightmare. He came too, but

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Speaker 1: he was furious with her. He shouted, why did you

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Speaker 1: wake me? I was having a fine dream, a monster story,

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Speaker 1: as he told her. But it was more than that.

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Speaker 1: He'd always been fast by the mix of good and

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Speaker 1: evil that's in all of us. So jekyline Hyde was

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Speaker 1: really a deeper look at the human mind. Lewis had

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Speaker 1: been sick pretty much his entire life, but he was

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Speaker 1: tenacious and so anxious to get this story on paper

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Speaker 1: that during the long process of dying from tuberculosis, he

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Speaker 1: wrote jekyline Hyde in just three days. It was a

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Speaker 1: relief to get it finished, but there was just one problem.

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Speaker 1: Fanny didn't like it. She felt it was a great story,

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Speaker 1: but told incorrectly that rather than just writing a horror story,

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Speaker 1: he should take a deeper look at what motivates both

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Speaker 1: good and evil in one person. He was upset, but

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Speaker 1: he really trusted her opinion. She was his first editor.

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Speaker 1: She left the room and when she came back she

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Speaker 1: saw a pile of ashes. He said he had burned

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Speaker 1: it because he didn't want to be tempted to use

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Speaker 1: any part of it. He wanted to start this story

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Speaker 1: all over again. He knew he was dying, although it

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Speaker 1: wasn't immediate, but he knew he had to get the

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Speaker 1: book written as quickly as possible, so he rewrote it

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Speaker 1: in six more days. Now, the thing is he was

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Speaker 1: probably high on cocaine while writing it. Cocaine had been

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Speaker 1: prescribed for his bleeding lungs, pretty common medication in those days.

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Speaker 1: Confined to bed, he continued to refine the story for

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Speaker 1: another six weeks or so. It was published in eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty six and became one of the most famous horror

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Speaker 1: stories ever written. The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and

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Speaker 1: Mister Hyde focuses on doctor Henry Jekyl, a respected guy

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Speaker 1: who lives in London's West End, but he's spent his

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Speaker 1: life ashamed of what he calls his evil urges and desires.

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Speaker 1: He decides he's going to create a serum that will

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Speaker 1: allow him to separate the evil part of his personality,

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Speaker 1: which he refers to as Edward Hyde, from his true self.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Jekyl instead transforms into Hyde, and only the serum

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Speaker 1: will restore him to Doctor Jekyl. But the problem is

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Speaker 1: he likes the transformation because as Hide, he can do

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Speaker 1: things Jekyl would be ashamed of, so he continues to

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Speaker 1: take the potion, transforming back and forth. Eventually, mister Hyde

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Speaker 1: becomes too powerful, several people are killed, and investigators move in.

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Speaker 1: Scholars say the story is a perfect guide to the

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Speaker 1: Victorian mindset, outward respectability and inward lust. It shows that

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Speaker 1: when we push thoughts and desires into our unconscious mind,

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Speaker 1: it can kind of screw up our conscious mind. The

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Speaker 1: book was an instant sensation. Within six months, forty thousand

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Speaker 1: copies sold in Britain alone, and it became a best

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Speaker 1: seller in the United States as well. Within months, it

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Speaker 1: was adapted for the stage. Actors became famous for playing

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Speaker 1: mister Hide. One was so convincing as the monster that

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Speaker 1: some folks suspected him of being Jack the Ripper in

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Speaker 1: real life, who of course was terrorizing London at the

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Speaker 1: same time. The phrase jekylin Hyde became a permanent part

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Speaker 1: of the English language, describing anybody with a dual personality.

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Speaker 1: But Stevenson never really got healthy again. He spent the

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Speaker 1: rest of his life trying to ease his tuberculosis by

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Speaker 1: living in warmer climates. In eighteen eighty eight, he and

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Speaker 1: his family sailed to the South Pacific and eventually settled

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Speaker 1: in Samoa, building a house and living among the islanders,

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Speaker 1: and he kept writing Treasure Island kidnapped tons of essays

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Speaker 1: and short stories, but in the end tuberculosis took over.

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Speaker 1: On December third, eighteen ninety four, Stephenson was working on

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Speaker 1: a new novel when he suddenly collapsed. He died hours

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Speaker 1: later of a brain hemorrhage or stroke. He was forty

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Speaker 1: four four years old, but his most famous work lives on,

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Speaker 1: Written in nine days while sick in bed with fevers

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Speaker 1: and probably high on cocaine. The strange case of Doctor

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Speaker 1: Jekyll and mister Hyde defined Gothic horror and at the

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Speaker 1: same time created a name for human duality that we

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Speaker 1: still use today. Robert Louis Stevenson was buried on top

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Speaker 1: of a mountain in Samoa, overlooking the South Pacific Sea.

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Speaker 1: His tombstone is engraved with a poem he wrote specifically

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Speaker 1: for his grave, called Requiem. Here he lies where he

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Speaker 1: longed to be. Home. Is the sailor home from sea

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Speaker 1: and the hunter home from the hill. Hope you're enjoying

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Speaker 1: the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review and

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Speaker 1: follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically.

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Speaker 1: Also feel free to dm me if you have a

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Speaker 1: story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty

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Speaker 1: Steele and on Instagram Real play Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis

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Speaker 1: Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.

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Speaker 1: Our writer Jay Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday

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Speaker 1: and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with

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Speaker 1: comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty

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Speaker 1: Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history

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Speaker 1: you didn't know you needed to know,