The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.
STEVENSON ROBERT LOUIS
Robert Louis Stevenson nació en Edimburgo, en 1850. Fue un importante novelista, poeta y ensayista escocés. Su vasta obra incluye crónicas de viaje, novelas de aventuras e históricas, así como lírica y ensayos. Es autor de algunas de las historias fantásticas y de aventuras más clásicas de la literatura, como La isla del tesoro, La flecha negra y El extraño caso del Doctor Jekyll y el Señor Hyde. Varias de sus novelas continúan siendo muy famosas y algunas de ellas han sido llevadas varias veces al cine del siglo XX, en parte adaptadas para niños.
