15. Robert Louis Stevenson’s drinking partner killed his wife and became Mr. Hyde
A student of human personalities, Robert Louis Stevenson believed that every man could be good and evil. In searching for inspiration for his novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he didn’t have to look very far. In May 1878, Stevenson attended the trial of his friend Eugene Chantrelle, a French teacher accused of poisoning his wife after taking out an insurance policy on her. With the discovery of Mrs. Chantrelle’s nightgown, which contained evidence of a lethal dose of opium, Chantrelle was found guilty of the crime. The thought that his friend and drinking companion killed his wife in such a calculating manner remained in Stevenson’s mind for years afterward.
One night, in 1885, Robert Louis Stevenson was trying to think of a good story that would demonstrate the duality of a man’s personality. His wife, Fanny, heard him screaming in his sleep, and she woke him from his nightmare; he scolded his wife that she interrupted “a fine bogey-tale.” According to his family, Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde feverishly, going days on end without rest. This episode, recounted in Graham Balfour’s biography of Stevenson, details that when Fanny woke him, Stevenson was dreaming of the first transformation of the shy Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.