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10A1 Easter Homework- Research Project

AO3: Exploration of ideas/perspectives/contextual factors shown by specific, detailed links between context/text/task

Your task is to research contextual factors in preparation for studying The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. You can focus your research on at least two of the following areas:

Ø Author context (Robert Louis Stevenson): Personal life, Other work, Political interests, Travels, Reception of literature at the time it was first published

Ø Historical context: Law, Technology, Culture, Religion, Science, Duality of Britain

Ø Social context: Society, Values, Beliefs

Ø Literary context: Gothic literature, Literary canon, Popularity, Writing style, Criticism

Ø Novel influences: Other work, Nature of Edinburgh, Charles Darwin’s ‘Theory of Evolution’, Industrial Revolution, Deacon Brodie, Louis Vivet

Using the information found, prepare a presentation. This can be in a form of your choice, including: PowerPoint, physical poster, digital poster, essay/report or any other creative form of your choosing - be inventive!

You are banned from copy and pasting or using Wikipedia. I will check!

Due date: Monday 16 th April

Any work must be emailed to me: hterry@keshacademy.com or given in as a physical copy in the first lesson back. I will choose some students to present their findings to the class.

For links to websites: www.padlet.com/missterry

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Jekyll and Hyde | A Timeline of Events and Publications

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Jekyll and Hyde | A Timeline of Events and Publications

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| 1818 | Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is published | Dr Frankenstein is an overreaching scientist whose monstrous creation pursues and eventually destroys him.  Dr Jekyll also overreaches, and is ultimately destroyed for doing so.  Both novels employ layered, framed narratives that help to generate a sense of unsettling opacity.

|  1859 | Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species is published | Charles Darwin′s Origin of Species challenged traditional Victorian perceptions of science and scientific possibilities, whilst also undermining the value of religion as a guiding force.  The resulting debates around morality and existentialism are clearly present throughout Jekyll and Hyde.

| 1871 | Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man is published | Darwin considered ‘whether man, like every other species, is descended from some pre-existing form’.  Jekyll and Hyde captures many of the anxieties that arose from late nineteenth-century evolutionary thought, specifically the fear of regression.  It is notable that Hyde is described as ‘ape-like’ and ‘troglodytic’.

|  1885 | Criminal Law Amendment Act | Henry Jekyll is part of a circle of respectable Victorian professionals.  His life, outwardly, is sterile and self-consciously repressed.  Hyde’s ‘undignified’ and ‘monstrous’ nocturnal acts are suggestive of what, at the time, would have been classified as gross indecency.

| Robert Louis Stevenson publishes The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1886

| 1888 | The Whitechapel murders are committed. | The first of the eleven unsolved Whitechapel murders were committed two years after Jekyll and Hyde was published.  Speculation in newspapers that the identity of the murderer was Edward Hyde did not, at the time, seem entirely implausible.

| 1890 | Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is published | Both Dorian and Jekyll lead double lives and, outwardly, maintain gentlemanly exteriors.  Each character is able to create a double, with all the resources necessary to indulge in the ‘sordid and sensual’ whilst avoiding public shame.  However, Dorian, like Jekyll soon grows ‘deadly sick’.

| 1895 | Oscar Wilde’s trial results in his imprisonment | Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act was used to send Wilde to prison; he was convicted of sodomy.  A number of oblique references to Jekyll’s homosexuality are made in the novel, and the power of Hyde to blackmail him over the ‘concealed pleasures’ of his past greatly concerns Utterson.

| 1897 | Bram Stoker’s Dracula is published | Dracula’s dual identity as a refined Count and primitive monster mirrors Jekyll’s own duality.  The novel, like Jekyll and Hyde, is a dramatization of fears at the time that civilisation was only a thin veneer, emphasised by the common imperialistic view that colonial subjects were primitive savages.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dracula, by Bram Stoker

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Explore 'The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885', a pamphlet on the British Library's Discovering Literature website.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, De Profundis, by Oscar Wilde This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.

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19th Century justice - Victorian Crime and Punishment

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Crime, Poverty and Reforms At the end of the 18th century it was not just crime that was increasing but also poverty. The industrial revolution made many people rich but for many poor families (both in rural and urban areas) life was the worst it had been for a long time.

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Some houses consisted of just two rooms, one on top of the other; some were back-to-back with no through ventilation; all shared with neighbouring houses earth-closets built over cesspits, and took their water from a common standpipe. In such places it was impossible to keep either bodies or dwellings clean; it was often easier to defecate in the streets, over gratings or in hidden corners than in the filthy crowded privies of the poor.

Tyndall's Buildings and their like may have been the archetypal slums of Victorian London but in fact slums came in many forms. In the early 19th century, as London grew and pressure on house-room increased, any open space - remnants of market gardens, marshy meadows not previously profitable for building, or the grounds of former farmhouses - became valuable terrain for the jerry-builder. These fag-end parcels of London clay would be leased for 21 years or even less, so builders had every incentive to put up hovels that would last no longer than that: without foundations; with dirt floors; with walls just half a brick thick; with yards and streets unpaved and without drains.

Such places were slums as soon as they were built. They might be clustered in large numbers in shanty towns which were sometimes named after the entrepreneur who had first developed the land. In London there was Tomlin's New Town in Paddington; Agar Town, north of Battle Bridge and today's King's Cross; and the Potteries, self-built colonies of potters', brickmakers' and pig-keepers' cottages west of Notting Hill.

"A Village - Not Picturesque," was how Mary Bayly, an evangelical 'bible-woman' active among the poor of North Kensington, described the Potteries in 1859, citing a passage from Household Words, Charles Dickens's first weekly magazine, to make her point: "There are foul ditches, open sewers, and defective drains, smelling most offensively... not a drop of clean water can be obtained - all is charged to saturation with putrescent matter. Wells have been sunk on some of the premises, but they have become, in many instances, useless, from organic matter soaking into them. In some of the wells the water is perfectly black and fetid. The paint on the window-frames has become black from the action of the sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Nearly all the inhabitants look unhealthy; the women especially complain of sickness and want of appetite; their eyes are sunken, and their skin shrivelled."

It was to deal with places such as the Potteries and Tyndall's Buildings, in almost every part of built-up London and on all its scabrous margins, that a new London government was established in 1855. London's local vestries, each of which appointed a Medical Officer of Health and sanitary inspectors, would be responsible for public health, while the London-wide Metropolitan Board of Works would take on the tasks of draining London, driving new streets through congested districts and, later, clearing the slums through 'Improvement Schemes'.

Remapping with road and rail

There were, though, as many ways of dealing with the slums as there were types of slums themselves. Road-building had long given London's governors - crown and parliament before 1855, local government thereafter - the excuse and opportunity to rid the metropolis of great nests of troublesome neighbourhoods. Commercial Street was driven along the course of Rose Lane, Spitalfields, around 1840, and a little later New Oxford Street was built through the Irish rookery ('The Holy Land') of St Giles in the Fields. Victoria Street cleared part of the 'Devil's Acre' near Westminster Abbey, while Farringdon Road and the underground railway destroyed much of the notorious Field Lane. Even late in the 19th century and into the Edwardian era, the slum-clearance potential of Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell, and Kingsway, Holborn were crucial factors when deciding whether public money could be granted for such projects.

Elsewhere railways, those great drivers of London's prosperity at mid-century, swept away Agar Town; this short-lived shanty of the 1840s was destroyed within two decades for the Midland Railway's giant warehouses. It is estimated that railway clearances elsewhere in the metropolis, mainly in the 1860s, evicted 56,000 people, most from the poorer working classes. Suburban development by speculative builders also cleared some slums: in this way Tomlin's New Town was remodelled out of all recognition by 'Tyburnia', north of Hyde Park, in the 1830s.

The slum clearance role of railway schemes was strictly secondary to the commercial needs of the companies, and the primary purpose of road schemes was ostensibly to facilitate London's constipated traffic flows rather than to dislodge the poor, with their dangers and diseases, from the places they had to call home. It was not until the first official slum clearance measure - the Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act of 1875 - that London government was given a weapon to strike directly at the heart of the city's unhealthy slums.

Health was the driving force behind this act, though almost everywhere it was the most turbulent districts - long known for crime and disorder even more than for infectious disease and high mortality - that were chosen to fall to the housebreaker's hammer. Flower and Dean Street (in the Spitalfields district), Bedfordbury (St Martin-in-the-Fields), Old Pye Street (Westminster), Tabard Street (Southwark) and a host of other districts had long been notorious as criminal haunts, home to large numbers of prostitutes and thieves.

In fact, there were so many potential targets that the Metropolitan Board of Works overreached itself, evicting thousands while the housing associations who should have provided new homes proved unable or unwilling to build, and cleared sites lay empty and undeveloped for years to come. Indeed, by the time of the greatest clearance of all - that for the 'Jago', the Boundary Street area of south-west Bethnal Green, in the 1890s - the London County Council, the replacement authority for the discredited Board of Works, decided itself to build working-class housing on the site. By the turn of the 20th century the Boundary Street Estate would become the first great municipal housing venture in London.

Suburban slums

By that time, however, a new sort of slum had become all too evident. Exuberant building speculations during the three decades following 1845 built a seemingly endless expanse of middle-class housing north of the river, from Pimlico in the west to Dalston in the east. At first there seemed to be a bottomless market for three- and four-storey London properties built in long terraces - but the demand proved illusory. One of the consequences was that product of late-Victorian building: the suburban slum.

This was much more difficult to deal with than the irredeemably shoddy towns of Agar and Tomlin. These houses were solid enough, and certainly pretentious; they were intended for lower middle-class families, with rooms for one or two servants in the attics and a kitchen in the basement. But they either never found those ideal tenants, or quickly lost them to a host of competing streets nearby. Some of these slums were isolated streets that had lost cachet, such as Sultan Street in Camberwell, Litcham Street in Kentish Town, and Campbell Road in Finsbury Park - later described as "the worst street in north London" - albeit being surrounded by respectable streets.

The slum clearance legislation of 1875 was never designed for houses as generous in size, with dedicated sanitary and washing facilities, and sturdily built to last the full length of a 99-year lease. The problem was not so much the houses themselves but the way they were used. Instead of a single middle-class family in occupation, these properties became 'tenement houses' or 'houses let in lodgings', with a working-class family on each floor - increasingly, one in every room.

The most troublesome and intractable of these new suburban slums lay next to the Potteries of North Kensington. Notting Dale, built from the early 1860s, absorbed the older district's habits, and corrupted the streets built nearby to the south and west. Notting Dale became known as 'The West-end Avernus' or 'hell on earth'. By 1896 it was 'home' to more than 4,000 people. Its houses were densely overcrowded, many occupied by 20 people and more, often sharing a single toilet. Here, 43 children out of every 100 would die before reaching their first birthday. According to the local authority, though, the houses were far less of a problem than the people, prone especially to "drunkenness" and "inherited disease". Notting Dale's population was said to be "largely made up of loafers, cab-runners, beggars, tramps, thieves, and prostitutes".

When, at the end of the 19th century, the social reformer Charles Booth pondered how to deal with the "semi-criminal and degraded" populations of Bangor Street, Crescent Street and the other notorious places of Notting Dale and beyond, he could suggest only that they "be harried out of existence". Demolishing homes and dispersing 'savages' was one way of attempting this - but was easier said than done. Notting Dale would not see significant demolitions until the end of the 1930s, and much of the surrounding district retained its evil reputation for another two decades. Even in the early 1960s, and in a very different London, this part of North Kensington would continue to be known as 'a troubled area'.
Jerry White is professor in history at Birkbeck, University of London, specialising in working-class London life since 1700, and author of London in the Nineteenth Century (Jonathan Cape, 2007). This article complemented a five-part BBC Two series The Victorian Slum, showing modern families living in simulated slums, which aired in autumn 2016.
Slum clearances: evicting the lowly
Between 1878 and 1899, slum clearance schemes in central London led to 45,334 men, women and children being evicted. Those, at least, are the official figures; the real numbers may be much higher, because it was in the slum landlord's interest to evict as many people as he could before the official valuation of his property - empty rooms having greater letting potential than houses filled to the rafters. There is no figure for those thus 'winkled out', but even the official number is huge - equivalent to the population of Rotherham in the 1890s. Who were these people? The short answer is: we don't know. The voice of the evicted slum-dweller is, for all practical purposes, silent. Some among them would have been intelligent and articulate, literate and skilled. Most, though, were the nameless poor, who lived large parts of their lives in hunger, cold and semi-nakedness. Perhaps word of mouth told them to stay put for the few shillings of compensation that came their way, but that is all they got. At the end, as the social reformer the Earl of Shaftesbury described in the House of Lords in 1875, when the bailiffs arrived "perplexity and dismay are everywhere; the district has all the air of a town taken by assault". The slums were not cleared to benefit people like these. They were cleared to get rid of them. The Metropolitan Board of Works, and its successor, the London County Council, provided or enabled housing associations to provide dwellings for 46,934 persons. On the face of it, that was a small gain. But those new dwellings were never intended for those who had been evicted. The slum dwellers were kept out by rules with which they couldn't comply, and by rents they couldn't afford. So where did they go? It's likely that they melted into neighbouring streets, or moved to congenial 'slums' nearby or even farther afield. Only a few score of the 45,000 people evicted ever occupied the new London that replaced their old homes. This article was first published in the October 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine

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Life in 19th-century slums: Victorian London's homes from hell

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Some houses consisted of just two rooms, one on top of the other; some were back-to-back with no through ventilation; all shared with neighbouring houses earth-closets built over cesspits, and took their water from a common standpipe.

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London History - London, 1800-1913 - Central Criminal Court

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At the beginning of the nineteenth century London was the largest city in Europe. As the centre of government of a massive empire, London continued to grow at a phenomenal rate: in geographical size, in the numbers of souls it contained, and in its economic prosperity.

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EVERYDAY LIFE IN 19TH CENTURY BRITAIN

By Tim Lambert

Society in the 19th Century

During the 19th century life in Britain was transformed by the Industrial Revolution. At first it caused many problems but in the late 19th century life became more comfortable for ordinary people. Meanwhile Britain became the world's first urban society. By 1851 more than half the population lived in towns. The population of Britain boomed during the 1800s. In 1801 it was about 9 million. By 1901 it had risen to about 41 million. This was despite the fact that many people emigrated to North America and Australia to escape poverty. About 15 million people left Britain between 1815 and 1914. However many people migrated to Britain in the 19th century. In the 1840s many people came from Ireland, fleeing a terrible potato famine. In the 1880s the Tsar began persecuting Russian Jews. Some fled to Britain and settled in the East End of London.

In the early 19th century Britain was ruled by an elite. Only a small minority of men were allowed to vote. The situation began to change in 1832 when the vote was given to more men. Constituencies were also redrawn and many industrial towns were represented for the first time. The franchise was extended again in 1867 and 1884. In 1872 the secret ballot was introduced. Once most men could vote movements began to get women the right to vote as well. In 1897 in Britain local groups of women who demanded the vote joined to form the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).

In 19th century Britain at least 80% of the population was working class. In order to be considered middle class you had to have at least one servant. Most servants were female. Throughout the 19th century 'service' was a major employer of women.

In the 19th century families were much larger than today. That was partly because infant mortality was high. People had many children and accepted that not all of them would survive.

In the early 19th century a group of Evangelical Christians called the Clapham Sect were active in politics. They campaigned for an end to slavery and cruel sports. They gained their name because so many of them lived in Clapham. Organised religion was much more important in the 19th century than it is today. Nevertheless in 1851 a survey showed that only about 40% of the population were at church or chapel on a given Sunday. Even allowing for those who were ill or could not make it for some other reason it meant that half the population did not go to church. Certainly many of the poor had little or no contact with the church. In 1881 a similar survey showed only about 1/3 of the population of England at church on a given Sunday. In the late 19th century organized religion was in decline in Britain.
A history of Christianity in England
Work in the 19th Century

During the 1800s the factory system gradually replaced the system of people working in their own homes or in small workshops. In England the textile industry was the first to be transformed. It employed many children. Unfortunately when children worked in textile factories they often worked for more than 12 hours a day. In the early 19th century parliament passed laws to restrict child labor. However they all proved to be unenforceable. The first effective law was passed in 1833. It was effective because for the first time factory inspectors were appointed to make sure the law was being obeyed. The new law banned children under 9 from working in textile factories. It said that children aged 9 to 13 must not work for more than 12 hours a day or 48 hours a week. Children aged 13 to 18 must not work for more than 69 hours a week. Furthermore nobody under 18 was allowed to work at night (from 8.30 pm to 5.30 am). Children aged 9 to 13 were to be given 2 hours education a day.

Conditions in coal mines were often terrible. Children as young as 5 worked underground. However in 1842 a law banned women and boys under 10 from working underground. In 1844 a law banned all children under 8 from working. Then in 1847 a Factory Act said that women and children could only work 10 hours a day in textile factories. In 1867 the law was extended to all factories. (A factory was defined as a place where more than 50 people were employed in a manufacturing process). In 1878 a law banned women from working more than 56 hours a week in any factory. In the 19th century boys were made to climb up chimneys to clean them. This practice was ended by law in 1875.

In the 19th century being a domestic servant was a common job for women. Other women worked as charwomen or laundresses. Many women worked at home finishing shirts or shoes. Others made boxes or lace at home. In the Black Country in the West Midlands of England some women made chains in forges by heir homes. In the 19th century married working class women often worked - they had to because many families were so poor they needed her earnings as well as her husbands.

In the 1850s and 1860s skilled craftsmen formed national trade unions. However unskilled workers did not become organised until the late 1880s.
A history of work
British Cities in the 19th Century

Living conditions in early 19th British century cities were often dreadful. However there was one improvement. Gaslight was first used in 1807 in Pall Mall in London. Many cities introduced gas street light in the 1820s. However early 19th century cities were dirty, unsanitary and overcrowded. In them streets were very often unpaved and they were not cleaned. Rubbish was not collected and it was allowed to accumulate in piles in the streets. Since most of it was organic when it turned black and sticky it was used as fertilizer.

Furthermore in the early 19th century poor people often had cesspits, which were not emptied very often. Later in the century many people used earth closets. (A pail with a box containing granulated over it. When you pulled a lever clay covered the contents of the pail). In the early 19th century only wealthy people had flushing lavatories. However in the late 19th century they became common. In the early 19th century poor families often had to share toilets and on Sunday mornings queues formed.
A history of toilets
Given these horrid conditions it is not surprising that disease was common. Life expectancy in cities was low (significantly lower than in the countryside) and infant mortality was very high. British cities suffered outbreaks of cholera in 1831-32 and in 1848-49. Fortunately the last outbreak finally spurred people into action. In the late 19th century most cities dug sewers and created piped water supplies, which made society much healthier. Meanwhile in 1842 Joseph Whitworth invented the mechanical street sweeper.

Poverty in the 19th Century

At the end of the 19th century more than 25% of the population of Britain was living at or below subsistence level. Surveys indicated that around 10% were very poor and could not afford even basic necessities such as enough nourishing food. Between 15% and 20% had just enough money to live on (provided they did not lose their job or have to take time off work through illness). If you had no income at all you had to enter the workhouse. The workhouses were feared and hated by the poor. They were meant to be as unpleasant as possible to deter poor people from asking the state for help. However during the late 19th century workhouses gradually became more humane.
The history of poverty
Homes in the 19th Century

Well off people lived in very comfortable houses in the 19th century. (Although their servants lived in cramped quarters, often in the attic). For the first time furniture was mass-produced. That meant it was cheaper but unfortunately standards of design fell. To us middle class 19th century homes would seem overcrowded with furniture, ornaments and nick-knacks. However only a small minority could afford this comfortable lifestyle.

In the early 19th century housing for the poor was often dreadful. Often they lived in 'back-to-backs'. These were houses of three (or sometimes only two) rooms, one of top of the other. The houses were literally back-to-back. The back of one house joined onto the back of another and they only had windows on one side. The bottom room was used as a living room cum kitchen. The two rooms upstairs were used as bedrooms. The worst homes were cellar dwellings. These were one-room cellars. They were damp and poorly ventilated. The poorest people slept on piles of straw because they could not afford beds. However housing conditions gradually improved. In the 1840s local councils passed by-laws banning cellar dwellings. They also banned any new back to backs. The old ones were gradually demolished and replaced over the following decades.

In the early 19th century skilled workers usually lived in 'through houses' i.e. ones that were not joined to the backs of other houses. Usually they had two rooms downstairs and two upstairs. The downstairs front room was kept for best. The family kept their best furniture and ornaments in this room. They spent most of the their time in the downstairs back room, which served as a kitchen and living room. As the 19th century passed more and more working class people could afford this lifestyle. In the late 19th century workers houses greatly improved. After 1875 most towns passed building regulations which stated that e.g. new houses must be a certain distance apart, rooms must be of a certain size and have windows of a certain size.

By the 1880s most working class people lived in houses with two rooms downstairs and two or even three bedrooms. Most had a small garden. At the end of the 19th century some houses for skilled workers were built with the latest luxury - an indoor toilet. However even at the end of the 19th century there were still many families living in one room. Old houses were sometimes divided up into separate dwellings. Sometimes if windows were broken slum landlords could not or would not replace them. So they were 'repaired' with paper. Or rags were stuffed into holes in the glass.

In the late 19th century most homes also had a scullery. In it was a 'copper', a metal container for washing clothes. The copper was filled with water and soap powder was added. To wash the clothes they were turned with a wooden tool called a dolly. Or you used a metal plunger with holes in it to push clothes up and down. Wet clothes were wrung through a device called a wringer of mangle to dry them. The clothes wringer or mangle was invented by Robert Tasker in 1850. In 1875 a man named John B. Porter invented a portable ironing board. Sarah Boone patented an improved device in 1892. At the beginning of the 19th century people cooked over an open fire. This was very wasteful as most of the heat went up the chimney. In the 1820s an iron cooker called a range was introduced. It was a much more efficient way of cooking because most of the heat was contained within. By the mid-19th century ranges were common. Most of them had a boiler behind the coal fire where water was heated.

Gaslight first became common in well off people's homes in the 1840s. By the late 1870s most working class homes had gaslight, at least downstairs. Bedrooms might have oil lamps. Gas fires first became common in the 1880s. Gas cookers first became common in the 1890s. In the last 2 decades of the 19th century many British towns and cities installed electric street lights. However electric light was expensive and it took a long time to replace gas in people's homes.

In the early 19th century only rich people had bathrooms. People did take baths but only a few people had actual rooms for washing. In the 1870s and 1880s many middle class people had bathrooms built. The water was heated by gas. Working class people had a tin bath and washed in front of the kitchen range.
A history of homes
Food in the 19th Century

In the early 19th century most of the working class lived on plain food bread, butter, potatoes and bacon. Butcher's meat was a luxury. However food greatly improved in the late 19th century. Railways and steamships made it possible to import cheap grain from North America so bread became cheaper. Refrigeration made it possible to import cheap meat from Argentina and Australia. Consumption of sugar also increased. By the end of the 19th century most people were eating better food. Furthermore in the late 19th century canned food first became widely available. The rotary can opener was invented in 1870 by William Lyman. Furthermore in the 1870s margarine, a cheap substitute for butter, was invented. A man named Gail Borden patented condensed milk in 1856. John Meyenberg patented evaporated milk in 1884.

Meanwhile several new biscuits were invented in the 19th century including the Garibaldi (1861), the cream cracker (1885) and the Digestive (1892). The first chocolate bar was made in 1847. Milk chocolate was invented in 1875. The first recipe for potato crisps appeared in a book by Dr William Kitchiner in 1817.
A history of food
Education in the 19th Century

In the early 19th century the churches provided schools for poor children. From 1833 the government provided them with grants. There were also dame schools. They were run by women who taught a little reading, writing and arithmetic. However many dame schools were really a child minding service. In Britain the state did not take responsibility for education until 1870. Forsters Education Act laid down that schools should be provided for all children. If there were not enough places in existing schools then board schools were built. In 1880 school was made compulsory for 5 to 10 year olds. However school was not free, except for the poorest children until 1891 when fees were abolished. From 1899 children were required to go to school until they were 12. Meanwhile girls from upper class families were taught by a governess. Boys were often sent to public schools like Eton. Middle class boys went to grammar schools. Middle class girls went to private schools were they were taught 'accomplishments' such as music and sewing.

Games and leisure in the 19th Century

In the early 19th century working people had very little leisure time. However things improved by the end of the century. In 1871 the Bank Holiday Act gave workers a few paid holidays each year. Also in the 1870s some clerks and skilled workers began to have a weeks paid annual holiday. However even at the end of the 19th century most people had no paid holidays except bank holidays. In the early 19th century everyone had Sunday off. In the 1870s some skilled workers began to have Saturday afternoon off. In the 1890s most workers gained a half day holiday on Saturday and the weekend was born. By the end of the 19th century most people had more leisure time.

Meanwhile during the 19th century sports became organized. The first written rules for rugby were drawn up in 1845. The London Football Association devised the rules of football in 1863. The first international match was held between England and Scotland in 1872. In 1867 John Graham Chambers drew up a list of rules for boxing. They were called the Queensberry Rules after the Marquis of Queensberry. The Amateur Athletics Association was founded in 1880. Polo was first played in Britain in 1869. Several new sports and games were invented during the 19th century. Although a form of tennis was played since the Middle Ages lawn tennis was invented in 1873. Snooker was invented in India in 1875. Volleyball was invented in 1895. At the end of the 19th century bicycling became a popular sport. The safety bicycle was invented in 1885 and in 1892 John Boyd Dunlop invented pneumatic tyres (much more comfortable than solid rubber ones!) Bicycling clubs became common in Victorian Britain.

Ludo was originally an Indian game. It was introduced into Britain c. 1880. Reading was also popular in the 19th century. In 1841 Edgar Allan Poe published the first detective story The Murders In The Rue Morgue. The first Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887 by Arthur Conan Doyle. Many middle class people also enjoyed musical evenings when they gathered around a piano and sang. Middle class people were very fond of the theater. In the late 19th century there were also music halls where a variety of acts were performed. In the 19th century going to the seaside was very popular with those who could afford it. The first pleasure pier was built at Brighton in 1823 and soon they appeared at seaside resorts across Britain.

The steam driven printing press was invented in 1814 allowing newspapers to become more common. Stamp duty on newspapers was abolished in 1855, which made them cheaper. However newspapers did not become really common until the end of the 19th century. In 1896 the Daily Mail appeared. It was written in a deliberately sensational style to attract readers with little education.

One new hobby in the 19th century was photography. Henry Fox Talbot took the first photograph in 1835. However photography was more than just a pastime. In 1871 a writer said that one of the great comforts for the working class was having a photo of a family member who was working a long way off. They could be reminded what their loved one looked like. the first cheap camera was invented in 1888 by George Eastman. Afterwards photography became a popular hobby.

In the late 19th century town councils laid out public parks for recreation. The first children's playground was built in a park in Manchester in 1859.

In the 19th century the modern Christmas evolved. Before then Christmas wasn't especially important. It was one of only many festivals celebrated during the year. However the Victorians invented the Christmas card and the Christmas cracker. The Christmas tree was known in England before the 19th century but it was really made popular when the royal were shown in a magazine illustration with one. Father Christmas or Santa Claus became the figure we know today in the 19th century.
The history of games
Transport and Communications in the 19th Century

Transport greatly improved during the 19th century. In the mid 19th century travel was revolutionized by railways. They made travel much faster. (They also removed the danger of highwaymen). The Stockton and Darlington railway opened in 1825. However the first major railway was from Liverpool to Manchester. It opened in 1830. In the 1840s there was a huge boom in building railways and most towns in Britain were connected. In the late 19th century many branch lines were built connecting many villages. The first underground railway in Britain was built in London in 1863. Steam locomotives pulled the carriages. The first electric underground trains began running in London in 1890. From 1829 horse drawn omnibuses began running in London. They soon followed in other towns. In the 1860s and 1870s horse drawn trams began running in many towns. Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler made the first cars in 1885 and 1886. The motorbike was patented in 1885. Also in the 1880s the safety bicycle was invented and cycling soon became a popular hobby.

Meanwhile at sea travel was revolutionized by the steam ship. By 1815 steamships were crossing the English Channel. Furthermore it used to take several weeks to cross the Atlantic. Then in 1838 a steamship called the Sirius made the journey in 19 days. However steam did not completely replace sail until the end of the 19th century when the steam turbine was used on ships. By the mid 19th century life boats were commonly carried on ships.

In the early 19th century the recipient of a letter had to pay the postage, not the sender. Then in 1840 Rowland Hill invented the Penny Post. From then on the sender of a letter paid. Cheap mail made it much easier for people to keep in touch with loved ones who lived a long way off. The telegraph was invented in 1837. A cable was laid across the Channel in 1850 and after 1866 it was possible to send messages across the Atlantic. A Scot, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. The first telephone exchange in Britain opened in 1879.
The history of transport
Clothes in the 19th Century

In the 19th century, apart from cotton shirts, men's clothes consisted of three parts. In the 18th century they wore knee length breeches but in the 19th century men wore trousers. They also wore waistcoats and coats. In the early 19th century women wore light dresses. In the 1830s they had puffed sleeves. In the 1850s they wore frames of whalebone or steel wire called crinolines under their skirts. In the late 1860s women began to wear a kind of half crinoline. The front of the skirt was flat but it bulged outwards at the back. This was called a bustle and it disappeared in the 1890s. From the 1840s onward it was fashionable for women to have very small waists so they wore corsets. Meanwhile about 1800 women started wearing knickers. At first they were called drawers. Originally women wore a pair of drawers i.e. they were actually two garments, one for each leg, tied together at the top. In the late 19th century in Britain women's drawers were called knickerbockers then just knickers.

Before the 19th century children were always dressed like little adults. In that century the first clothes made especially for children appeared such as sailor suits. A number of inventions to do with clothing were made in the 19th century. Thomas Hancock invented elastic in 1820. The safety pin was invented in 1849 by Walter Hunt. The electric iron was invented by Henry Seely in 1882 but it did not become common until the 1930s. The zip fastener was invented in 1893. In 1863 Butterick made the first paper dress pattern.
The history of clothes
Health and Medicine in the 19th century

Medicine and surgery made great advances in the 19th century. Louis Pasteur 1822-1895 proved that disease was caused by microscopic organisms. He also invented a way of sterilizing liquids by heating them (called pasteurization). He also invented vaccination for anthrax (which killed many domestic animals) and for rabies. Immunization against diphtheria was invented in 1890. A vaccine for typhoid was invented in 1897.

Surgery was greatly improved by the discovery of anesthetics. James Simpson began using chloroform for operations in 1847. In 1865 Joseph Lister discovered antiseptic surgery, which enabled surgeons to perform many more complicated operations. Rubber gloves were first used in surgery in 1890. Then in 1895 x-rays were discovered. Nursing was greatly improved by two nurses, Florence Nightingale 1820-1910 and Mary Seacole 1805-1881 who both nursed soldiers during the Crimean War 1854-56.
The history of Surgery
Warfare in the 19th century

The industrial revolution transformed warfare. Railways meant armies could be transported much faster than before. The telegraph meant that messages could also be transmitted much faster. At the beginning of the 19th century Sir William Congreve (1772-1828) developed the Congreve rocket. These rockets were used at Copenhagen in 1807 and they set most of the town on fire. However rockets lacked both range and accuracy and after the Napoleonic Wars they fell from favor. Meanwhile in 1807 a Scot named Alexander Forsyth patented the percussion cap. When a trigger was pulled a hammer hit a container of fulminate of mercury, which exploded and ignited the charge of gunpowder. The percussion cap replaced the flintlock. Furthermore breech loading guns greatly increased the rate of fire. The British army began using breech loading guns in 1865. The range of guns was improved by rifling. Some guns had been rifled for centuries but it only became commonplace in the 19th century. In the late 19th century rifles were improved further by the introduction of magazines, which greatly increased the rate of fire.

Meanwhile in 1836 Samuel Colt began making revolvers. Traditionally the cavalry fought with pistols and swords but the revolver made swords obsolete. In the 19th century many people experimented with machine guns. In 1862 Richard Gatling invented the Gatling gun. However the first really successful machine gun was the maxim gun, invented by Hiram Maxim in 1884. It was adopted by the British army in 1889.

War at sea was changed by exploding shells, by steam engines and by iron ships. In 1858 the French launched La Gloire. It was made with plates of iron fixed onto timber. However in 1860 Britain launched HMS warrior. This ship was made with an iron hull instead of a wooden hull with iron plates fixed on. Soon the traditional gun deck on warships was replaced by turret guns on the top deck. Then in the 1860s Robert Whitehead developed the modern torpedo. The British navy began making torpedoes in 1871. In the 19th century new explosives were invented to replace gunpowder. TNT was invented in 1863 and dynamite followed in 1867. Cordite was invented in 1889. Meanwhile conditions in the services greatly improved. Uniforms were introduced for sailors in 1857. Flogging in the army and navy was abolished in 1881.
Everyday life in 16th Century England Everyday life in 17th Century England Everyday life in 18th Century England Everyday life in 20th Century Britain Women in the 19th Century
Last revised 2018

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EVERYDAY LIFE IN 19TH CENTURY BRITAIN By Tim Lambert Society in the 19th Century During the 19th century life in Britain was transformed by the Industrial Revolution. At first it caused many problems but in the late 19th century life became more comfortable for ordinary people. Meanwhile Britain became the world's first urban society.

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Etiquette, sexual repression and body snatching - A Guide to the context of Jekyll & Hyde

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It takes a fair amount of time before you can teach a new text with genuine confidence. Not the everyday facade of confidence that all good teachers wear routinely. Rather the calm feeling of having lots of angles covered and few areas where a really smart pupil could catch you out with certain questions.

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Predominant at the start of the 19th century, by the end of the Victorian era the Church of England was increasingly only one part of a vibrant and often competitive religious culture, with non-Anglican Protestant denominations enjoying a new prominence. The period also saw the greatest burst of church building since the Middle Ages.

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Predominant at the start of the 19th century, by the end of the Victorian era the Church of England was increasingly only one part of a vibrant and often competitive religious culture, with non-Anglican Protestant denominations enjoying a new prominence. The period also saw the greatest burst of church building since the Middle Ages.

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Civil War was a historic event of such magnitude that it forever changed the way Americans thought about their history and divided the cultural understanding of the nation into two distinct periods: everything that came before the war, and everything that happened afterward. The Second Industrial Revolution (1865 to 1900) was another such watershed era that redefined not only the American way of life but life around the world. Inventions that relied on newly harnessed means of putting electricity, steel, and petroleum to use spurred the growth of railways and steamships, and transformed everything from farming to manufacturing. The 19th century was the age of machine tools-tools that made tools and machines that made parts for other machines, including interchangeable parts. The 19th century brought us the assembly line, speeding up the factory production of goods. It also gave birth to the notion of a professional scientist. In fact, the word "scientist" was first used in 1833 by William Whewell. Inventions including the telegraph, typewriter, and the telephone led to faster and wider means of communication. The following list (by no means exhaustive) chronicles some of the most important innovations that took shape in the 19th Century.

The first 10 years the 19th century may not have been the most fertile for new technology but the impending Second Industrial Revolution would follow soon enough. Here are some of that decade's most important innovations:

1800-French silk weaver J.M. Jacquard invents the Jacquard loom.

​1800-Count Alessandro Volta invents the battery.

1804-Friedrich Winzer (Frederick Albert Winsor) patented coal-gas.

1804-English mining engineer Richard Trevithick develops a steam-powered locomotive but is unable to produce a viable prototype.

1809-Humphry Davy invents the arc lamp, the first electric light.

1810-German Frederick Koenig invents an improved printing press.

19th-Century Roots, 21st-Century Technology

Everyday things consumers took for granted by the 20th century-the light bulb, telephones, typewriters, sewing machines, and phonographs-were all products of the 19th century. Even as we embrace the 21st-century technology that has rendered some of these marvels obsolete, while we might not know the names of the 19th-century inventors who created the precursors to computers, smartphones, and streaming media, more than a century after their inventions first saw the light of day their ideas live on, continuing to inspire current and future generations of inventors, scientists, and innovators.

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The lightbulb, the telephone, and the sewing machine were all invented during the Second Industrial Revolution helped to define 19th-century America.

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Innovation and Technology in the 19th Century | Teachinghistory.org

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Apart from the technological inventions themselves, daily life in the 19th century was profoundly changed by the innovation of reorganizing work as a mechanical process, with humans as part of that process. This meant, in part, dividing up the work involved in manufacturing so that each single workman performed only one stage in the manufacturing process, which was previously broken into sequential parts.

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'Man is not truly one, but truly two': duality in Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Curator Greg Buzwell considers duality in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, exploring how the novel engages with 19th-century debates about evolution, degeneration, consciousness, homosexuality and criminal psychology.

Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is a late-Victorian variation on ideas first raised in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Stevenson's monster, however, is not artificially created from stitched-together body parts, but rather emerges fully formed from the dark side of the human personality. In the story Dr Jekyll, an admired member of the professional Victorian middle-classes, conducts a series of scientific experiments which unleash from his own psyche the 'bestial' and 'ape-like' Mr Hyde (ch. 10). Gothic fiction had examined the idea of the sinister alter ego or double before on many occasions but Stevenson's genius with Jekyll and Hyde was to show the dual nature not only of one man but also of society in general. Throughout the story, respectability is doubled with degradation; abandon with restraint; honesty with duplicity. Even London itself has a dual nature, with its respectable streets existing side-by-side with areas notorious for their squalor and violence.

Evolution and degeneration

Viewed on a simple level, Dr Jekyll is a good man, much admired in his profession. Mr Hyde, meanwhile, is evil. He is a murderer; a monster who tramples upon a small girl simply because she happens to be in his way. On a deeper level, however, the comparison is not merely between good and evil but between evolution and degeneration. Throughout the narrative Mr Hyde's physical appearance provokes disgust. He is described as 'ape-like', 'troglodytic' and 'hardly human' (ch. 2). As Mr Enfield, a well-known man about town and distant relative of Jekyll's friend Mr Utterson, observes 'There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable' (ch. 1). Some 15 years before Jekyll and Hyde, Charles Darwin had published The Descent of Man (1871), a book in which he concluded that humankind had 'descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped' which was itself 'probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal'.[1] Going back even further, Darwin hypothesised that these stages of evolution had been preceded, in a direct line, by 'some amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fish-like animal'. Such a nightmarish biological lineage that denied the specialness of humans, feeds into many late-Victorian Gothic novels. Dracula's ability to transform into the shape of a wolf or a bat is one example, while Dr Moreau's experiments upon the hapless animals on his island as he attempts a barbaric form of accelerated evolution is another. Stevenson's portrayal of Hyde works in a similar fashion. Mr Hyde is regarded as physically detestable but perhaps only because he subconsciously reminds those he encounters of their own distant evolutionary inheritance. When Dr Jekyll's medical colleague, Dr Lanyon, witnesses Hyde transform back into Jekyll, the knowledge that the ugly, murderous beast exists within the respectable Victorian scientist sends him first to his sick-bed, and then to an early grave.

Double lives and misleading appearances

The depiction of Dr Jekyll's house was possibly based on the residence of famous surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793), whose respectable and renowned house in Leicester Square in the late 18th century also had a secret. In order to teach and to gain knowledge about human anatomy, Hunter required human cadavers, many of them supplied by 'resurrection men' who robbed fresh graves. These were brought, usually at night, to the back entrance of the house, which had a drawbridge leading to the preparation rooms and lecture-theatre

The front aspect of Dr Jekyll's house presents a 'great air of wealth and comfort' (ch. 2). Meanwhile Mr Hyde, soon after we first encounter him, is seen entering a building which displays an air of 'prolonged and sordid negligence' (ch.1). The twist is that the reputable front and the rundown rear form two sides of the same property. Stevenson is not only making the point that the respectable and the disreputable frequently exist in close proximity, but also that a respectable façade is no guarantee against dark secrets lurking within. In a similar fashion, the seemingly decent Mr Enfield, a friend of the lawyer Mr Utterson, first encounters Hyde while 'coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock of a black winter morning' (ch. 1). Exactly where Mr Enfield has been, and what he has been up to, are never made clear but it sounds far from innocent. Throughout the book the people and events that initially seem innocent and straightforward become dark and sinister when viewed more closely.

Double-consciousness

Just as the differing appearances of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde play upon the theories emerging from Charles Darwin's work, so their differing personalities explore contemporary debates about moral behaviour and the possible plurality of human consciousness. By literally splitting the consciousness of Dr Jekyll into two - the decent side that attempts, and largely succeeds, in suppressing desires that run contrary to the dictates of society; and the amoral side that runs riot in an attempt to gratify animal desire - Stevenson explores in a heightened fashion the battles played out in every one of us. As Dr Jekyll observes 'I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both' (ch. 10). Through Hyde, the respectable Dr Jekyll is freed from the restraints imposed by society - 'my devil had been long caged, he came out roaring' (ch. 10). In his confession at the end of the book, Jekyll observes that, ultimately, he will have to choose between being Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde. To become the latter would mean giving up on noble aspirations and being 'forever despised and friendless'. (ch. 10) To become Jekyll, however, means giving up the sensual and disreputable appetites he can indulge as Hyde. In spite of the curious circumstances of his own case it is, as the melancholy Jekyll observes, a struggle and debate 'as old and commonplace as man' (ch. 10).

Poster depicting Jekyll and Hyde from the film adaptation starring Fredric March

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Poster depicting the split personalities of Jekyll and Hyde from the film adaptation starring Fredric March, 1931.

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Homosexuality

In an early draft of the book, Stevenson has Dr Jekyll confess 'From an early age ... I became in secret the slave of certain appetites'. Such an observation inevitably leads us to wonder what such 'appetites' could have been. For some as the book's other characters - as well as the first readers of the book - unaware that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person, the relationship between the two must have appeared puzzling. Why would the respectable Jekyll grant the vile Hyde free access to his house, let alone alter his will so that in the event of his death or disappearance Hyde will inherit. For Mr Enfield there can only be one answer: 'Blackmail, I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth' (ch. 1). Stevenson, because of the era in which he was writing, could not make specific references to homosexuality, but much of the plot initially hints at Hyde blackmailing Jekyll because of the doctor's unorthodox sexual preferences.

Homosexuality and blackmail were frequently linked in this period. Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885 (the year in which Stevenson was writing his tale), made 'gross indecency' - a nebulous term that was not precisely defined - a criminal activity. In practice, the Act was primarily used to prosecute homosexuals on the flimsiest of evidence and was dubbed a 'Blackmailer's Charter'. Dr Jekyll is a bachelor - indeed the entire story is played out amongst a small circle of unmarried men. As implied by comments such as Mr Utterson's 'It turns me cold to think of this creature [Hyde] stealing like a thief to Harry's bedside', homosexuality (either as a secret from the doctor's past, or else as a current relationship between the youthful Hyde and the lonely Jekyll) is a thinly-veiled theme throughout (ch. 2). Even the behaviour of the elderly MP Sir Danvers Carew, who meets his death at Edward Hyde's hands after 'accosting' Hyde 'with a very pretty manner' late one night down by the river, takes on a new light once the reader becomes aware of homosexuality as an undercurrent in the story (ch. 3). In this tale of double-lives nobody is quite what they initially appear to be.

The fascinating instances of doubling in Stevenson's tale did not come to an end upon the book's publication. In a macabre twist, events from real life began to overlay themselves upon the narrative. The Whitechapel Murders occurred in the autumn of 1888, two years after the publication of Jekyll and Hyde, and the real murderer and the fictitious Mr Hyde were swiftly paired in the public imagination. Indeed, the murders became so entangled with the story, Richard Mansfield who famously played Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the stage adaptation produced a year after the publication of the novel, was accused of being the Ripper murderer by a member of the public.

When Hyde attacks Sir Danvers Carew he beats him to death with his walking stick, commenting afterwards 'With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow' (ch. 10). The ferocity of the attack mirrors the intensity of the Ripper murders. Jekyll and Hyde pointed towards an unpalatable truth. Mr Hyde, with his 'ape-like' appearance conformed to contemporary criminological theory in which delinquents displayed visible traits indicative of their unpalatable natures. Dr Jekyll, however, a 'large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty' would not conform to such a theory and yet, as we know, Jekyll and Hyde are one and the same; two faces of a single personality (ch. 3). This leads to the uncomfortable possibility that one could pass a monster such as Jack the Ripper in the street and yet only see a respectable, civilised gentleman exhibiting absolutely no trace of the depraved killer lurking within Jekyll and Hyde and Jack the Ripper.

The Illustrated Police News was a weekly tabloid newspaper published between 1864 and 1938; its front page carried illustrations of the most sensational crimes of the immediate period. Explore further.

Copyright: Sourced from the British Newspaper Archive

Footnotes

[1] Charles Darwin, The Origins of Species and The Descent of Man (New York: The Modern Library, 1936), p. 911.

Greg Buzwell is Curator of Contemporary Literary Archives at the British Library. He has co-curated three major exhibitions for the Library - Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination; Shakespeare in Ten Acts and Gay UK: Love, Law and Liberty. His research focuses primarily on the Gothic literature of the Victorian fin de siècle. He has also edited and introduced collections of supernatural tales by authors including Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Edgar Allan Poe and Walter de la Mare.

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'Man is not truly one, but truly two': duality in Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde | The British Library

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The Victorian Era was a clash between traditional values and progressive thoughts. The purpose of conservatism was to preserve the traditional values. Conservatism influences social behaviors, attitudes, and actions, which means people not only have to consider the hasty changes, but also the expectations of conservative ideals. As a result, there was an increase in internal conflicts and self identification. Some people have to hide behind their conservative facades and others want to separate themselves from either conservatism or society itself. As a result, many individuals begin searching for a solid definition and position of self in the whirl wind of the Victorian era,

"Nothing characterizes Victorian society so much as its quest for self-definition." (1049 )

Stevenson, from "The strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" portrays the struggle for self identification in the period of inconsistency and capriciousness:

If each, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that unbearable; that unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.(1809)

Stevenson reveals that human beings possess dual natures. By this he means one to be the animalistic side and the other a man's rational side. Stevenson presents the scenario by having Dr. Jekyll consume a special potion to turn him into Mr. Hyde. The potion rouses a dormant character that is emphasized by a physical mutation. In some ways it parallels the urban and city area after and during industrialization. The city area consists of slums and shanty towns that have to support a large population. Congestion, pollution, sanitation and hygiene are some of the few problems the city life entails. However, Mr. Hyde also represents the morally corrupt aspect of industrialization. For instance, the increase of inequality, child labor, injustice among the poor is in itself an illness that permeates throughout England. The true ugliness lies within these flaws. There is a stark contrast between the urbane, illustrious gentleman and the impulsive animal.Dr. Jekyll is similar to the conservatives. He is a socially acceptable and repressed individual who has a dark side, though he can hide it. Conservatives similarly have to hide behind their sophisticated and fancy attire. However, Hyde is the complete liberated side. He is the boundless individual that gives into all desires. One can say that the fundamental basis of the duality in Dr. Jekyll is his desire to be closer to his "dark" side. He can not behave the way he wants to because he does not want to risk losing his high social status. In the disguise of Mr. Hyde, he can lurk around "dark", prohibited area where he can fulfill his sinister desires without putting his important reputation at risk. The constant struggle on what to do and what not to do is part of Victorian society and continues to add to society's fear of insecurity and uncertainty that no one really knows a person based on exterior personas.

This idea of dualism is seen throughout this semester's reading selections. For example, Charlotte Bronte manages to show female duality through various female characters. Jane just like Dr. Jekyll has been molded and shaped to fit what society deems acceptable or conservative. Most of the novel revolves around an older Jane who wants people to see her as the plain, meek, and wallflower of a girl. Then we have Bertha who is a lot more like Mr. Hyde. She represents insanity, a result of women who have been repressed and limited by the conservative patriarchal society. But are Jane and Bertha really different? Are they two separate individuals? Or Jane like Dr. Jekyll has a repressed Hyde in her? We see the "insane" or "animalistic" side of Jane when she is a child. As a child, Jane shares many similarities with the character of Bertha in relation to dealing with a male dominated society. At first Jane holds in her passion, despite her oppressive environment with the Reeds. However, Jane eventually asserts herself against John in a physical and violent way. Not only did she physically hurt John Reed, but she verbally abuses Mrs. Reeds. I as a reader felt her rage, and saw Mrs. Reed's fear. This is comparable to Bertha's violent outbursts and temper toward Mr. Rochester and those in his home. Nevertheless, the differences lie in the fact that Bertha remains violent, while Jane comes of age and begins to conform in order to thrive in a male dominated society. She suppresses her "dark side", but we as a reader see it in Bertha. Not only is Bertha a symbol of the repressed and "dark" side of Victorian women, but also a reflection of Jane herself.

The reading selections not only demonstrate the internal struggles of a Victorian, but the catalyst to those struggles; because the characters in these reading are a manifestation of the events surrounding the Victorian Period. The Victorian Era represents both spectrum of extremes: one side a sense of hope and optimism and the other a sense of fear and doom. It is said the

"Victoria's reign were marked by momentous and intimidating social changes, startling inventions, prodigious energies; the rapid succession of events produced wild prosperity and unthinkable poverty, humane reforms and flagrant exploitation, immense ambitions and devastating doubts." (1049)

In the midst of productivity and urbanization the people also have to witness the unstoppable backlash of the movement. For instance, the drastic increase in crime and the degeneration of the sprawling cities because the infrastructures can not handle the influx of new workers. Furthermore, depredation becomes the fact of life for majority of the working class, and inequality and injustice becomes prevalent and obvious than ever. The idea that progress may also mean the destruction and corruption of many is an uneasy feeling, that anyone at anytime including the wealthy can get lost in the upheaval and have no choice, but to continue living. Those who are in fear then welcome the concept of conservatism. Thus, the notion of dualism and the exterior of an individual not truly representing the interior begins to develop.

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The Victorian Era was a clash between traditional values and progressive thoughts. The purpose of conservatism was to preserve the traditional values. Conservatism influences social behaviors, attitudes, and actions, which means people not only have to consider the hasty changes, but also the expectations of conservative ideals.

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From wild and remote landscapes to vulnerable heroines; from violent and erotic fantasies to supernatural and uncanny happenings; Gothic fiction has intrigued and unsettled readers for more than two centuries. How do these works reflect the political, social and cultural contexts in which they were written?

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From wild and remote landscapes to vulnerable heroines; from violent and erotic fantasies to supernatural and uncanny happenings; Gothic fiction has intrigued and unsettled readers for more than two centuries. How do these works reflect the political, social and cultural contexts in which they were written?

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By Charlotte Barrett

In the Victorian era, Gothic fiction had ceased to be a dominant literary genre. However, the Gothic tropes used earlier in the eighteenth century in texts such as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho were transported and interwoven into many late-nineteenth century narratives. These tropes included psychological and physical terror; mystery and the supernatural; madness, doubling, and heredity curses.

The gloomy atmosphere and persistent melodrama present in Dickens' Bleak House and Oliver Twist, exemplifies the transference of Gothic components into an urban, modern setting. The Victorian Gothic moves away from the familiar themes of Gothic fiction - ruined castles, helpless heroines, and evil villains - to situate the tropes of the supernatural and the uncanny within a recognisable environment. This brings a sense of verisimilitude to the narrative, and thereby renders the Gothic features of the text all the more disturbing.

Photograph created to support Spiritualism
By Unknown / National Media Museum
[Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Spiritualism
'Supernatural' meant many things in the nineteenth century. The difficulty in defining what the term meant exactly is what made it so appealing, as individuals could use the idea of the supernatural in support of different hoaxes that promoted 'unexplained' phenomena. Spiritualism; the belief that the dead can communicate with the living, was one such popular fad that swept throughout Europe and America in the 1850s. Due to its indefinable nature, different interpretations of the supernatural could allow spiritualists to believe in ghostly presences and sceptics to explain the phenomena as psychological. Supernatural events such as table-rapping, automatic writing and full-body materialisation of spirits were construed as new forms of nature which had previously been overlooked.

The Victorian era saw the abandonment of conventional religion. In the search for meaning, people were prepared to suspend reason. Many Victorians, including the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, actively believed in Spiritualism.
The Influence of Science and The Theory of Atavism
Scientific discourses on mental science, anthropology, and human behaviour appeared to merge with the fictional texts of Victorian Gothic literature. In 1859, Darwin published Origin of Species. A hugely influential text, Darwin's theory promoted the idea that all organisms - humans included- had evolved from primitive forms. The insertion of humans beings into this biological continuum meant that, for Darwin, humans were part of nature rather than above it. Many thought Darwin's theory undermined the Christian explanation of human origins, as these claims meant that the world could not have been created in seven days.

The theory of atavism arose alongside the popularisation of evolutionary theory. Providing a counter argument to Darwin's theory, atavism promoted the fear of regression. This was the idea that, if all humans had evolved from primitive forms, then we could potentially return to this basic state, behave like immoral animals, and succumb to primitive urges. Atavistic behaviour was therefore associated with criminality, as it represented transgressions such as violence and murder which shattered the class-conditioned, moral framework governing Victorian standards of behaviour.

The Italian scientist Cesare Lombroso was the central figure in the promotion of the theory of atavism. He endorsed the use of physiognomy, a now defunct scientific theory which claimed that atavistic behaviour was identifiable through the examination of individual features. Lombroso believed in the 'born criminal', claiming that criminals could be identified by their appearance, particularly by the size of their skulls.
Read more
For an example of the components of Gothic fiction at work in a text read Charlotte Barrett's partner essay: 'Gothic Elements in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'

Go to the library section and find:

Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho to see how eighteenth-century Gothic fiction differs greatly from the Victorian version.

Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey presents a parody of Gothic fiction and helpless heroines. The text mentions several Gothic novels, including those by Radcliffe.

Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights transports the Gothic to the desolate Yorkshire Moors and features supernatural occurances and a Byronic hero in the character of the villainous Heathcliff.

Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde demonstrates the use of Gothic tropes in Victorian fiction.

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By Charlotte Barrett In the Victorian era, Gothic fiction had ceased to be a dominant literary genre. However, the Gothic tropes used earlier in the eighteenth century in texts such as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho were transported and interwoven into many late-nineteenth century narratives.

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Background notes

The social context
The historical context of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century is important to the Gothic form. This was a time very aware of upheaval and change. Important factors include:

the French Revolution, and its effect on notions of class and identity;

Darwinism and his threat to the established parameters of religious thought;

the Industrial Revolution, with its ambivalence towards technology as both exciting and dangerous, and its profound effect on social class with the possibility for acquired rather than inherited wealth;

Colonialism, and the British Empire's expanding wealth and influence;

the influence of Romanticism as a unified intellectual movement.

Gothic literature and Romanticism
Gothic literature can be related to the Romantic reaction against social order and rationality exemplified by the Neo-Classicism of the eighteenth century. Gothicism could be seen as an extreme fringe version of Romanticism's celebration of the emotional - it deals with terror as the most extreme form of emotion.
Themes common to Gothic and Romantic texts include Nature, the emotions, the exotic, medieval nostalgia, and in rather different senses the exploration and celebration of the self.

The cult of the Gothic novel
The Gothic novel functions as a cult literature in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is a popular, romance form; its stories are stylised, non-realistic, idealised or emblematic, and often presented in an adventure format. (Please note that by "romance" here we do not mean the love story, but the romance quest narratives of the medieval era, as exemplified by tales of King Arthur).
In operating as mostly a pulp genre, Gothic literature offers the equivalent of the modern horror movie, exploring the pleasures and titillations of terror, shock and the perverse. Jane Austen's parody in Northanger Abbey speaks directly and comically to the titillation of the "horrid", and reflects the low status of the genre and the extent to which it was seen as both frivolous and unhealthy.
It is also important to note that its readership was largely female, which contributed to its low status, but which also allowed symbolic expressions of female experience which were not possible in more mainstream literature.
Gothic could be seen, once again, as an extreme form of romance - its sense of the symbolic, the quest of discovery, the magical represents the power of imagination not just celebrated, but run wild.

Some characteristics of Gothic
MELODRAMA - stereotype, moral polarisation, one-dimensionality, excess.
EXOTICISM - wild/remote locations, other cultures such as the Oriental.
TRANSGRESSION - fear of barbarism, of unleashing human passion beyond social constraints. Gothic's operation as a literature of the unconscious, of transgressive desires.
ALIENATION - the genre's interest in identity and subjectivity, but of an alienated self, set apart from society.

A Bibliography of Gothic Literature

This is a brief contextualisation of the Gothic genre, from its origins to the modern-day, to give you a sense of some of its better-known features. If you're interested in doing further reading, many of these works are available in the library.

NB many of these authors have produced several Gothic works; I've listed only the best-known. Feel free to dig up others.

1786

William Beckford, "Vathek".
Novella-length: demon-worshipping evil Caliph, with suitably exotic, orientalist decadence.

1819

John Polidori, "The Vampyre".
The story which established the classic Victorian vampire as a dissolute but rather sexy nobleman.

1839

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher".
Incestuously intense siblings, a crumbling house by a sinister tarn, madness, obsession and burying your sister alive.

1847

James Rymer, "Varney the Vampire".
More upper-class Victorian vampires.

1872

Sheridan Lefanu, "Carmilla"
Central European lesbian vampire noblewoman, complete with coffin scene, seduction and giant cat.

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The social context The historical context of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century is important to the Gothic form. This was a time very aware of upheaval and change.

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Think you know this book?

Think again.

The notion of a "Jekyll-and-Hyde" character has become a lazy way of describing someone when they do something contrary to their normal nature. But that's not quite what Dr Henry Jekyll does. Rather, he consciously searches for a chemical that will allow him to separate out the two sides to his nature. He is fascinated by the duality of man and wants to explore his darker side. Resolute and determined, eventually he succeeds. But his evil self becomes stronger over time, until it threatens to extinguish Jekyll altogether. The doctor has played with fire and he's burning from the inside.

Sadly, we'll never know the thrill experienced by this explosive book's original audience. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a work of suspense, but we all know the twist these days, don't we? So why do we still read the story? Well, it's written with great economy, tension and wit. I know few books so concise that pack such an emotional punch. It's also a complex narrative: Jekyll himself figures only as a friend of the other characters and narrators - right up until the revelation provided by his "confession". We start the book in the company of two gentlemen called Utterson and Enfield. They are out walking, but Enfield has a story to tell. It concerns a grotesque incident and its aftermath. The story links the thuggish and mysterious Edward Hyde to the wealthy and urbane Henry Jekyll. Utterson and Enfield are in no doubt: their friend is being blackmailed. But Hyde has a stronger hold on Jekyll than this, as Utterson will eventually discover.

The tale originally came to its author in a dream. Robert Louis Stevenson had always trusted to "brownies" - meaning his daydreams and nightmares. He felt that stories and characters were being channelled to him from elsewhere. As a young man his fantasy life had been kept in check. He had grown up in a family of engineers and was himself destined for a career in the law. He lived with his family in a large house in Edinburgh's "New Town" (constructed to a rational, geometric design in the late 18th century). But the population of the New Town had decamped from the squalid, overcrowded and downright dangerous "Old Town" (the stretch of Edinburgh between Castle Rock and the Palace of Holyrood). Stevenson was captivated by the Old Town, and would tiptoe out of the house when everyone else was asleep, climbing the steep slope towards drink and debauchery. He knew fine well that there were two sides to Edinburgh's character - he'd known it since childhood. In his bedroom there stood a wardrobe constructed by William Brodie, and young Stevenson's nanny would tell him the story of Brodie, who had been a respected citizen by day but housebreaker by night. Here was the duality of Man - not only in the figure of Brodie but also apparently built into the construction of the city itself - light and dark, the rational and the savage.

Jekyll and Hyde.

Stevenson suffered ill-health all his life, and was being dosed with an experimental drug at the time when his "brownies" assailed him with the story of the good doctor and his evil other self. It must have struck Stevenson that it might be a yarn about his own attraction to the less savoury side of life. Maybe self-preservation led him to set the novel in London rather than Edinburgh. On the other hand, London was perfect. It had been the home of a Scots-born doctor called John Hunter. Hunter was known in all the right circles. He was married to a patron of the arts who would give grand parties at their home in Leicester Square. But if you continued through the house you came to Hunter's surgery. You might also be shown his vast (and growing) collection of weird and wonderful specimens. And eventually, you'd find yourself in the cramped accommodation used by his students, beyond which a door led out into a narrow alley off what is now Charing Cross Road. This was where, at dead of night, the grave-robbers arrived with fresh deliveries of cadavers.

John Hunter did like his little experiments ...

When you read Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde you will be struck by the similarities. (Jekyll himself purchased such a property from the heirs of a great medical man.) For a tale steeped in fantasy and the macabre, this is a novel with its roots firmly planted in a recognisable world - so much so, in fact, that when Jack the Ripper began his work, the public began to suspect that Hyde himself might be real. And remember ... Jack, too, was reputed to be a medical man.

As a writer, Stevenson wanted to explore the various facets of human nature. Was civilisation just a very thin veneer? Did you dare to scratch its surface and reveal the truth beneath? We are all capable of committing evil acts - look at the atrocities meted out in wartime. Killers talk about the "red mist" that descends, then lifts, leaving them wondering how they could have done such terrible deeds. Religious believers talk of "possession". Psychopaths can appear to be just like you and me for the most part of their lives, but then suddenly flip, before flipping back again.

This is an important book because it discusses a very basic problem which is still (and forever) with us - how can we do such terrible things to each other? Jekyll feels hidebound in his own skin, made to comply with the rigid conventions of his class and society. Hyde frees him from this, but the sensation of liberation becomes addictive. It is no accident that Hyde is described as being much younger than Jekyll. Jekyll himself is a man of 50, regretting times past and opportunities missed. The folly of youth - that sense of possibility and invincibility - is regained when he becomes Edward Hyde.

This book, then, is a morality tale as well as a stark warning. It's also every bit as claustrophobic, creepy and chilling as when it first saw the light of day over a century ago.

Ian Rankin's introduction to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde appears in a new pocket hardback edition of the book by White's Books, priced £6.99, out now.
Topics

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Ian Rankin on The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

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Think you know this book? Think again. The notion of a "Jekyll-and-Hyde" character has become a lazy way of describing someone when they do something contrary to their normal nature. But that's not quite what Dr Henry Jekyll does. Rather, he consciously searches for a chemical that will allow him to separate out the two sides to his nature.

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Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh on the 13 November 1850. His father and grandfather were both successful engineers who built many of the lighthouses that dotted the Scottish coast, whilst his mother came from a family of lawyers and church ministers. A sickly boy whose mother was also often unwell, Stevenson spent much of his childhood with the family nurse, Alison Cunningham. She told him many ghost stories and supernatural tales which seem to resonate throughout Stevenson's later fiction, reappearing in several of his short-stories, such as 'The Body Snatchers', 'The Merry Men', and 'Thrawn Janet'. In 1867, Stevenson enrolled at Edinburgh University to study engineering. The choice of subject was influenced by Stevenson's father, who wished his son to continue the prestigious family tradition. Stevenson however had other ambitions, and even at this early stage, expressed a desire to write. He shortly changed courses and began to study law, but soon gave this up to concentrate on writing professionally, much to the displeasure of his father.

Stevenson married Fanny Osborne in May 1880. The newly-married couple set off on honeymoon together, accompanied by Fanny's son, Lloyd Osborne, from her previous marriage. The three started their trip in San Francisco, traveling through the Napa Valley to eventually arrive at an abandoned gold mine on Mount St Helena. Stevenson would later write about this experience in his travel memoir The Silverado Squatters (1883).

In August 1880 he sailed with Fanny and Lloyd from New York back to Britain. Both his parents were on the wharf at Liverpool waiting for the newly married couple to arrive, and seemed happy to see their son return home. Fanny was slowly able to patch up the differences that had arisen between father and son over Stevenson's choice of career.

Between the years 1880 to 1887, Stevenson searched in vain for a suitable climate to accommodate his poor health. He and Fanny eventually settled in Bournemouth in July 1884, with Stevenson naming the house 'Skerryvore' after the tallest lighthouse in Scotland which had been designed by his uncle Alan. Henry James was one of their first (and frequent) visitors.

Stevenson was very ill throughout the years he lived at Skerryvore and often unable to leave the house. Although his health was failing, he was still able to write a great deal of work during this period. In 1885 he published A Child's Garden of Verses, The Dynamiter, and Prince Otto. Jekyll and Hyde and Kidnapped followed in 1886, and The Merry Men was published in 1887. It was through these texts, written and published in quick succession, that Stevenson was able to establish his reputation as a serious author.

On 8 May 1887, Stevenson's father died. Unfortunately, Stevenson was so unwell that he was unable to attend the funeral. Following the death of his father, Stevenson decided to take the advice of his doctor and move to a warmer climate. A few months later on the 22 August, Fanny and Stevenson - along with Fanny's son Lloyd and Stevenson's mother - left for New York.

In the following June of 1888, Stevenson charted a yacht and set sail with his family from San Francisco. For nearly three years he traveled the eastern and central Pacific, the sea air and warm climate briefly restoring his health.

Stevenson decided to remain in the Pacific. In 1890 he purchased a plot of land of about 400 acres in Upolu, an island in Samoa. Here, after much work and two aborted attempts to visit Scotland, he established himself upon his estate in the village of Vailima. Stevenson decided to take the native name of 'Tusitala', which is Samoan for 'Teller of Tales'.

Always an ardent traveller, Stevenson spent the final years of his life living in Samoa. He wrote several works of fiction whilst living here, including Catriona and The Ebb-Tide.

He died suddenly on 3 December, 1894, leaving The Weir of Hermiston - the novel he was working on at the time of his death - unfinished. He was buried at the top of Mount Vaea above his home on Samoa. Part of his own short poem, 'Requiem' (from an 1887 collection) was written on his tomb: 'Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie...'

Upon hearing of his friends death, Henry James wrote the following lines in a letter to Edmund Gosse. Dated 17 December 1894, the letter reads as follows:

'I meant to write to you tonight on another matter - but of what can one think, or utter or dream, save of this ghastly extinction of the beloved R.L.S? It is too miserable for cold words - it's an absolute desolation. It makes me cold and sick - and with the absolute, almost alarmed sense, of the visible, material, quenching of an indispensable light'

Publications

Several of Stevenson's texts are written for children.Treasure Island (1883) was the first of these, inspired by a map Stevenson had drawn with his stepson Lloyd whilst holidaying in Scotland. This was followed by the collection of poems A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), The Black Arrow (1883), Kidnapped (1886) and its sequel Catriona (1893). However, although the four novels mentioned above all have youthful protagonists and were all first published in magazines for young people, they are also clearly intended for adult readers.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is arguably the most famous of Stevenson's texts. A huge success upon its publication in 1886, the novella caused a sensation, drawing upon Victorian anxieties regarding human identity, respectability, and the fear of regression; concerns which fuel the theme of Gothic horror prevalent throughout the text.

A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson works have been admired by many famous writers including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway and Rudyard Kipling. He was in regular correspondence with Henry James. The two authors would discuss 'the art of fiction' in their letters to one another and the works of other contemporary writers, including those of Thomas Hardy.

Chronology of Stevenson's Major Works

Treasure Island (1883) His first major success, a tale of piracy, buried treasure, and adventure.

Prince Otto (1885) Stevenson's third full-length narrative, an action romance set in the imaginary Germanic state of
Grünewald.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), a novella displaying Victorian Gothic themes about a dual personality.

Kidnapped (1886) A historical novel that tells of the boy David Balfour's pursuit of his inheritance in the intrigues
of Jacobite troubles in Scotland.

The Merry Men and Other Fables Contained six short-stories, including 'Olalla'

The Master of Ballantrae (1889), a masterful tale of revenge, set in Scotland, America, and India.

Catriona (1893) A sequel to Kidnapped, telling of Balfour's further adventures.

The Ebb-Tide (1894); co-written with Lloyd Osbourne.

Weir of Hermiston (1896). Unfinished at the time of Stevenson's death.

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Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh on the 13 November 1850. His father and grandfather were both successful engineers who built many of the lighthouses that dotted the Scottish coast, whilst his mother came from a family of lawyers and church ministers.

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The inspiration for the legendary villain in the novel "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" was one of author Robert Louis Stevenson's drinking buddies, who was tried for killing his wife and who liked to serve house guests poisoned cheese toast, according to a report.

A researcher in Edinburgh, Scotland, believes that newly examined notes written by Stevenson indicate that Hyde was based on Eugene Chantrelle, a Frenchman who hung out with the author and who was believed to be a "psychopath," the Times of London reported (paywall).

Chantrelle had gained a reputation as a enjoyable and kind dinner guest who was familiar with the works of literary writers such as Moliere.

However, according to Stephenson's notes, Chantrelle had a dark side that was evil and fascinating, according to historian Jeremy Hodges.

He was accused of using opium to kill his wife. And Stephenson said prosecutors at his trial also believed Chantrelle fled France after committing a murder and then killed four more people in Scotland by feeding them his "favorite dish of toasted cheese and opium" at dinner parties.

For the author, it was strange to believe the man he had spent hours with talking about literature could commit such horrors.

Hodges found a "fragment" of Stevenson's writing, buried within a 35-volume 1920s edition of the author's works that hints at and understanding of the "duality" of the Frenchman he had befriended

"Chantrelle bore upon his brow the most open marks of criminality; or rather, I should say so if I had not met another man who was his exact counterpart in looks, and who was yet, by all that I could learn of him, a model of kindness and good conduct," Stevenson wrote in the discovered notes, according the Times.

Hodges believes the notes now solve the puzzle behind the darkness in Stevenson's 1886 book and that his acquaintance with Chantrelle "would remain with him for life . . . most shocking of all was the way in which a monster had been able to deceive everyone."

Chantrelle isn't the first person who has been named as an alleged inspiration for Hyde.

Deacon Brodie, an Edinburgh cabinet maker-turned-burglar, as been named as a possible model for the character.

Also Stevenson's own drug use, including the hallucinogenic medicine ergotin to stem his hemorrhages, could have been the model for man's darker impulses.

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The terrifying 'psychopath' who inspired 'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde'

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The inspiration for the legendary villain in the novel "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" was one of author Robert Louis Stevenson's drinking buddies, who was tried for killing his wife and who liked to serve house guests poisoned cheese toast, according to a report.

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This is the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. To see the first transformation of Jekyll to Hyde, move the film forward to 25:20. To see the first transformation of Hyde to Jekyll, move the film forward to 28:00.

While writing some of his famous novels - like The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson (whom everyone called "Louis") lived in Bournemouth. He called his house, in that English coastal town, "Skerryvore."

What was life like in the Stevenson home? For an answer to that question, we can ask Stevenson's stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, who wrote about the famous author in An Intimate Portrait of R.L.S. The following are excerpts from his 1924 book:

"Skerryvore" was an unusually attractive suburban house, set in an acre and a half of ground; and its previous owner - a retired naval captain - had been at no little expense to improve and add to it...One felt it was a dream-come true of long years passed at sea...[

The house and five hundred pounds toward furnishing it were a wedding present to my mother Fanny Vandergrift Osbourne, an American] from RLS's parents. The wanderers were now anchored; over their heads was their own roof-tree; they paid rates and taxes ... Respectability, dulness, and similar villas encompassed him for miles in every direction.

In his heart I doubt if he really ever liked "Skerryvore"; he never spoke of it with regret; left it with no apparent pang. The Victorianism it exemplified was jarring to every feeling he possessed, though with his habitual philosophy he not only endured it, but even persuaded himself that he liked it ... he was virtually a prisoner in that house the whole time he lived in it; for him those years in "Skerryvore" were gray, indeed.

What made life difficult for Stevenson during those years in Bournemouth? His health, never good throughout his life, was especially bad at the time:

His health throughout was at its lowest ebb; never was he so spectral, so emaciated, so unkempt and tragic a figure. His long hair, his eyes, so abnormally brilliant in his wasted face, his sick-room garb, picked up at random and to which he gave no thought - all are ineffaceably pictured in my mind; and with the picture is an ineffable pity.

...But in general he was a prisoner in his own house and saw nothing of Bournemouth save his own little garden. There could be no pretense he was not an invalid and a very sick man. He had horrifying hemorrhages, long spells when he was doomed to lie motionless on his bed lest the slightest movement should restart the flow, when he would speak in whispers, and one sat beside him and tried to be entertaining - in that room he was only too likely to leave in his coffin.

How was he able to write at all, while he was so ill? Osbourne tells us more:

How thus handicapped he wrote his books is one of the marvels of literature - books so robustly and aboundingly alive that it is incredible they came out of a sick-room; and such well-sustained books with no slowing down of their original impetus, nor the least suggestion of those intermissions when their author lay at the point of death.

What did Stevenson write, while living at Skerryvore?

Those years in "Skerryvore" were exceedingly productive. The "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," was written here; so was "Kidnapped;" so was "Markheim," and any number of his best short sorties; so too, was the "Life of Fleeming Jenkin." (Lloyd Osbourne, An Intimate Portrait of RLS, quoted in "Appendix E: Stevenson in Bournemouth, 1884-87," included in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, Martin A. Danahay, editor, pp 129-131.)

Robert Louis Stevenson is a writer still widely admired in the 21st century. His stories, with their monsters and "bad guys," appeal to children and adults alike. Even Google, the popular search engine, honored the 160th anniversary of his birth - November 13, 2010 - with a popular "Google Doodle."

What inspired Stevenson? Where did he get the idea for his popular work, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Lloyd Osbourne, who was living with Louis at the time, tells us what happened when he first learned his stepfather had a great idea for a new story:

One day he came down to luncheon in a very preoccupied frame of mind, hurried through his meal - and unheard-of thing for him to do - and on leaving said he was working with extraordinary success on a new story that had come to him in a dream, and that he was not to be interrupted or disturbed even if the house caught fire.

For three days a sort of hush descended on "Skerryvore"; we all went about, servants and everybody, in a tiptoeing silence; passing Stevenson's door I would see him sitting up in bed, filling page after page, and apparently never pausing for a moment. At the end of three days the mysterious task was finished, and he read aloud to my mother and myself the first draft of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

How did that story sound, as read by its Scottish author? Osbourne continues:

I listened to it spellbound. Stevenson, who had a voice the greatest actor might have envied, read it with an intensity that made shivers run up and down my spine.

When he came to the end, gazing at us in triumphant expectancy and keyed to a pitch of indescribable self-satisfaction - as he waited, and I waited, for my mother's outburst of enthusiasm - I was thunderstruck at her backwardness. Her praise was constrained; the words seemed to come with difficulty; and then all at once she broke out with criticism. He had missed the point, she said; he had missed the allegory; had made it merely a story - a magnificent bit of sensationalism - when it should have been a masterpiece. (Osborne, quoted in Appendix E of Jekyll and Hyde, at pp 131-32.)

Stevenson's burst of creativity had resulted in a masterpiece. His stepson loved it. The world has since loved it. How could Fanny, his wife, have been so critical? How did Louis respond to her comments?

Stevenson was beside himself with anger. He trembled; his hand shook on the manuscript; he was intolerably chagrined. His voice, bitter and challenging, overrode my mother's in a fury of resentment. Never had I seen him so impassioned, so outraged, and the scene became to painful that I went away, unable to bear it any longer. It was with a sense of tragedy that I listened to their voices from the adjoining room, the words lost but fraught with an emotion that struck at my heart.

As we go back to that day in the Bournemouth house, and listen-in to the family's conversation, what do we hear from the man who wrote one of the most famous stories in western literature?

When I came back my mother was alone. She was sitting, pale and deslote before the fire, and staring into it. Neither of us spoke. Had I done so it would have been to reproach her, for I thought she had been cruelly wrong.

Then we heard Louis descending the stairs, and we both quailed as he burst in as though to continue the argument even more violently then before. But all he said was: "You are right I have absolutely missed the allegory, which, after all, is the whole point of it - the very essence of it."

And with that, as though enjoying my mother's discomfiture and her ineffectual start to prevent him, he threw the manuscript into the fire! Imagine my feelings - my mother's feelings - as we saw it blazing up; as we saw those precious pages wrinkling and burning and turning into flame. (Osborne, quoted in Appendix E of Jekyll and Hyde, at page 132.)

At first, Lloyd thought his step-father had acted rashly. Then he realized otherwise:

My first impression was that he had done it out of pique. But it was not. He really had been convinced, and this was his dramatic amend. When my mother and I both cried out at the folly of destroying the manuscript he justified himself vehemently. "It was all wrong," he said. "In trying to save some of it I should have got hopelessly off the track. The only way was to put temptation beyond my reach."

Did Louis abandon the story or immediately begin writing a new version?

Then ensued another three days of feverish industry on his part, and of a hushed, anxious, and tiptoeing anticipation on ours; of meals where he scarcely spoke; of evenings unenlivened by his presence; of awed glimpses of him, sitting up in bed, writing, writing, writing, with the counterpane littered with his sheets [of paper]. The culmination was the "Jekyll and Hyde" that every one knows; that, translated into every European tongue and many Oriental, has given a new phrase to the world. (Osborne, quoted in Appendix E of Jekyll and Hyde, at page 132.)

As a creative burst fueled his mind and body, Louis wrote more than 10,000 words a day - in longhand:

The writing of it was an astounding feat from whatever aspect it may be regarded. Sixty-four thousand words in six days; more than ten thousand words a day. To those who know little of such things I may explain that a thousand words a days is a fair average for any writer of fiction... (Osborne, quoted in Appendix E of Jekyll and Hyde, at page 132.)

Working on his novel, Weir of Hermiston - at his home in Samoa - Stevenson died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Forty-four years old at his death, he was buried near his Samoan home. After Fanny died in 1914, her daughter carried her ashes to Samoa where they were interred next to her husband's remains.

This film version of "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" - from 1920 - stars John Barrymore as Jekyll/Hyde. Now in the public domain, it remains one of the most-respected films of all time.

NOTE: To see the transformation scene, when Dr. Jekyll first becomes Mr. Hyde, move the film forward to 00:25:00.

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the Story of Its Creation

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This is the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. To see the first transformation of Jekyll to Hyde, move the film forward to 25:20. To see the first transformation of Hyde to Jekyll, move the film forward to 28:00.

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The unidentified killer known as Jack the Ripper murdered a series of women in the Whitechapel area of London during 1888. Judith Flanders explores how the excitement and fear surrounding the mysterious murderer made its way into late-Victorian literature.

Contemplating the murderer William Palmer, Dickens saw a face conveying 'nothing but cruelty, covetousness, calculation...and low wickedness'. He liked, he said, a murderer who looked like a murderer.

A murderer who looks just like everyone else

That was in life; in his fiction the novelist had long been exploring the notion of a murderer who looked, frighteningly, just like everyone else. In Our Mutual Friend, Bradley Headstone is a respectable teacher, but he nevertheless plans a murder. In The Mystery of Edwin Drood, John Jasper is a model citizen, a choirmaster who is (most likely) also a murderer. (We don't know because Dickens died before he finished the novel.)

In January 1886, the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson created a hugely influential picture of this terrifying doubleness, in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This novella, about a doctor who, on taking certain drugs, transformed himself into a thug-like murderer, sold 40,000 copies in the first six months. And soon thousands who had not read the book saw play adaptations.

Usage terms: Public Domain

In August 1888, the most famous adaptation opened, with Richard Mansfield in the double-part. He transformed himself in front of the fascinated audience's eyes, by changing posture, gait (and probably lighting). When, three weeks later, a prostitute was found murdered in Whitechapel - the start of the series of murders known as the Jack the Ripper killings - many people connected Stevenson's outwardly respectable Dr Jekyll and the murderous Mr Hyde with the invisible East End killer. The newspapers routinely referred to the murderer as Mr Hyde.

Richard Mansfield in the role of Jekyll and Hyde

The Richard Mansfield Calendar for 1900 celebrates his career by showing photographs of him in his favourite roles. The page for December shows a double exposure photograph of Mansfield in his dual role as Jekyll and Hyde.

Usage terms: Public Domain

One member of the public even sent the police a letter denouncing Mansfield: 'I should be the Last to think because A man take A dretfull Part he is therefore Bad but when I went to See Mr Mansfield Take the Part of Dr Jekel and Mr Hyde I felt at once that he was the Man Wanted...I do not think there is A man Living So well able to disgise Himself in A moment...'

Anonymous letter to City of London Police about Jack the Ripper

Letter received by the City of London Police, naming the actor Richard Mansfield (who was then playing Jekyll & Hyde) as the perpetrator of the 'Jack the Ripper' murders. 5 October 1888.

The unknown murderer

It is not known if Scotland Yard ever followed up this fanciful suggestion, but the murders laid at the door of the unknown killer have occupied the public imagination ever since. The crimes of the unknown person dubbed 'Jack the Ripper' have probably had more written about them than any since Cain killed Abel. The great horror - and the great fascination - of this series of murders is that they are entirely unknowable. The date they began, or ended, is open to question; the number, and sometimes even the names, of the victims is disputed. There was no arrest, no trial, no verdict to draw a line under the case, only a shadowy figure and a nickname that came from a letter that was almost certainly written by a hoaxer. Five women at least, and possibly more, were murdered and mutilated in the East End of London. Whether it was by a single person, as is popularly supposed, or by more, is unknown. Many at the time and since have suggested, following Stevenson's lead, that the murderer was an outwardly 'respectable' (read, middle- or upper-class) man.

Outward respectability and inner corruption

And so, as the events in real life unfolded, the play of Jekyll and Hyde was closed, for reasons of taste. Yet the idea of outward respectability and inner corruption remained in the air. One East End newspaper, reporting the murders, wrote that 'the mind turns...to some theory of occult force, and the myths of the Dark Ages', and a year later, one part-time writer began to concentrate on exactly that: Bram Stoker wrote his first notes for what would become Dracula. Many parallels can be found: five women were murdered in Whitechapel, while Dracula has five 'brides', whom he attacks and mutilates; the doctor carries a black bag, while in Whitechapel a man was arrested for nothing more; van Helsing and his friends form what Stoker in his notes called a 'vigilance committee', while in Whitechapel, the Mile End Vigilance Committee patrolled the streets. The East End was home to thousands of Jewish emigrants, and much of the reporting had a heavily anti-Semitic tone to it. The crimes, said the East London Observer, were so vile they 'must have been done by a Jew'. Stoker transformed this prejudice, this fear of the stranger, particularly the Eastern European stranger, into art.

Usage terms: Public Domain

He was not alone. Oscar Wilde, too, used the idea of doubling, and made it more terrifying by focusing not on the stranger, but on an insider, the frank beautiful, open Dorian Gray in The Picture of Dorian Gray, published only three months after Stoker made his first notes. With his picture of Gray, Wilde drew on the uncertainties of Whitechapel, the idea that no one was what they seemed, that any respectable person might harbour an evil secret. Gray's biography allows for a Ripper-like private life: there are 'mysterious and prolonged absences', he has a 'sordid room of the little ill-famed tavern near the Docks' - that is, in the East End, not far from where the murders took place, where he stays 'under an assumed name, and in disguise', while 'stories that you have been seen creeping at dawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest dens in London' circulate (ch. 11; ch. 12). Ultimately Gray commits an unspeakable crime, becoming, in literature, no different from the Ripper on the real streets.

Stevenson predated the Ripper killings; Wilde and Stoker wrote in an atmosphere where both Stevenson's work, and the real murders, were established fact. But the notions that they discussed - otherness, alienation, violence and despair, became a staple of the modernism they anticipated.

Judith Flanders is a historian and author who focussed on the Victorian period. Her most recent book The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London was published in 2012.

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The unidentified killer known as Jack the Ripper murdered a series of women in the Whitechapel area of London during 1888. Judith Flanders explores how the excitement and fear surrounding the mysterious murderer made its way into late-Victorian literature. Contemplating the murderer William Palmer, Dickens saw a face conveying 'nothing but cruelty, covetousness, calculation...and low wickedness'.

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. The Victorian period is a time of scientific, economic and social change that took place from 1837 to 1901. The flourishing England ruled by Queen Victoria was the main setting for this significant The Victorian Period and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: A Time of Change

slice of human history . During this time, the Londonians witnessed how the quiet streets became crowded with newcomers and how the crumbling buildings grew taller, but more attractive. There were also breakthroughs in science which are relevant still today. And as a result of social constraint, ladies and gentlemen would unleash their socially undesirable behaviors. In the midst of all this turmoil, In 1887, Robert Louis Stevenson published The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a short novel that conveys three important aspects of the Victorian period: the advancement in science, the economic growth, and the awake of socially repressed feelings and behaviors.

A distinguishing aspect of the Victorian period that is plainly evident in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the advancement in science. As the Victorian period was unfolding, the growing scientific community devoted their time to study new breakthroughs and discoveries. In a similar way, Dr. Jekyll, one of the main characters of Stevenson's short novel, was a dedicated scientist. In his laboratory, there were "tables laden with chemical apparatus, and the floor [was] strewn with crates and littered with packing straw" (Stevenson 69). It is precisely during the Victorian period that scientist " Thomas Graham "invented the "Graham's Law" about the diffusion of gases, and [he] is widely considered the father of colloid chemistry" ("Thomas Graham" 1). Also, Charles Darwin published the Origin of Species in 1855, which would cause a major shift in the course of science. As a parallel, Dr. Jekyll, though in fiction, invents a potion to change his physical appearance and become younger. Hence, the story vividly depicts the events that were taking place in the science field during the nineteenth century.

As it is portrayed in the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the attempts to conceal socially questionable behaviors led members of the higher class to display a double identity during the Victorian period. Dr. Jekyll is described as a wealthy and righteous man; "he had always been known for charities," the narrator explains "he was no less distinguished for religion. He was busy, he was much in the open air, he did good" (Stevenson 56). Despite his reputation and rectitude, Dr. Jekyll successfully created a potion under which effects he became a different person. Whenever he used the potion, Dr. Jekyll would turn into Mr. Hyde, who was described in the text as displeasing and detestable. The chemist had repressed socially prohibited behaviors all his life, but decided to change and obtain freedom by becoming somebody else. Mr. Hyde, he a victim of neither prejudice nor persecution for his actions. Like Dr. Jekyll, Victorians from the upper classes would engage in unaccepted behaviors. In the 1880's there was a sex scandal that involved people belonging to the upper classes. The married son of an industrialist gentleman had an affair with a young woman. There is evidence that "it was shortly after their marriage and early in Marth a's pregnancy that Haywood began an affair with Elizabeth, daughter of George Higginbottom, a manager at the Beatson Clark glassmaking firm" (Brooke 1). The infidelity of this man was kept as a secret; otherwise, he would have gone through a real nightmare. Mr. Haywood and other women and men like Dr. Jekyll, decided to be part of the starting change in morality view during the late Victorian period.

In the literary text The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, London is implicitly described as a growing city, which can be related to the actual economic growth that England in general was undergoing. In fact, at the peak of the European booming industry, when the text was written, England was building a rather healthy economy, partially induced by the industrial revolution. According to Professor Roger Burt at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom; "Overall the [British] economy trebled in size between 1870 and 1913, people became much better off, and it showed in all sorts of social indicators"(Burt 1). The fact that the British economy grew three times during the late Victorian period meant that the infrastructure would also improve. In Stevenson's short novel, there is a blending of new and old buildings. Furthermore, in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the city has light posts, banks, and police officers which are social indicators of a growing economy. In general, the Victorians were undergoing a significant change in their economic power.

The Victorian period marked a time in history during which the society in England underwent abrupt changes. Science played an important role during the nineteenth century because much of the aspiration for scientific knowledge was triggered at that time. The view of morality started to change, and people timidly started to engage into socially questionable behaviors. The economy grew considerably during the nineteenth century, as a result of the industrial revolution. Finally, in the light of factual information and the aspects analyzed from the text The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Victorian period was a stepping stone for the scientific, social, and economic development of England and Europe in 1800's.

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The Victorian Period and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: a Time of Change

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The Victorian Period and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde : A Time of Change ...

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Stevenson's life and work is always of great interest to doctors. He grew up in the most medical of all British cities, Edinburgh, he was surrounded by doctors and medical students, and he was ill from childhood. He was driven abroad not only by romantic, bohemian restlessness, but by the search for a curative climate for his chronic ill-health.

He spent months on the island of Abemama, in the Gilbert Islands in the central Pacific, where I once worked for three years. Abemama, which in Stevenson's day was under the sway of a petty tyrant, is still very remote today; and it inspired some of his later writing.

Like Henley, Stevenson overcame chronic illness and suffering to do a formidable amount of work. For many years he was thought to have suffered from tuberculosis, but it has more recently been suggested that he had bronchiectasis instead. So firmly etched in my mind, however, is Stevenson's TB that the new diagnosis, however true to life, is to me like a sequel to Treasure Island - not quite authentic. It isn't surprising, then, that many important characters in Stevenson's work are doctors.

Dr Livesey, in Treasure Island, gives an eternal lesson in medical ethics when he treats his wounded enemies, the pirates, all wicked men who have tried to kill him, with the same medical consideration as his friends. "At whatever risk to my own carcass," he says, "[I would] take them the assistance of my skill."

Long John Silver ALAMY

Not all the doctors in Stevenson are quite so admirable, of course. The protagonist of his greatest book, the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is a doctor, a man of the greatest kindness in the ordinary course of life but with the darkest possible underside that gradually overwhelms the better part of his nature. In the age of Dr Harold Shipman, this baroque tale seems almost bare realism.

Doctors are scattered elsewhere in Stevenson's extensive oeuvre, most scandalously in The Body-Snatcher. In this short story, Stevenson virtually accuses Queen Victoria's erstwhile surgeon, Sir William Fergusson, of having been a murderer, or at least an accessory to murder, in his youth.

Fergusson (1808-1877) was dead by the time Stevenson wrote and published the story, so there was no fear of libel; the surgeon appears as Dr Wolfe Macfarlane who, early in his career, knowingly accepted from Burke and Hare murdered bodies for dissection.

There could hardly have been a more sensational accusation against a figure of the greatest respectability. The identification is clear. In the story, Macfarlane has moved from Edinburgh to London to become a great figure there; Fergusson moved from Edinburgh to London to become one of the greatest medical figures of his age. In the story, Macfarlane is a dandy; Fergusson was a dandy. In the story, Macfarlane was assistant to Dr K..., the owner of the anatomy school to which the murdered bodies were brought; Fergusson was assistant to Dr Knox, the owner of the anatomy school to which Burke and Hare brought their murdered bodies.

Sensation, romance, adventure, quiet reflection, scandal, love of nature, Stevenson seems to have it all. Perhaps that is why he is among the most widely translated authors of all time.

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The strange case of Robert Louis Stevenson

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Stevenson's life and work is always of great interest to doctors. He grew up in the most medical of all British cities, Edinburgh, he was surrounded by doctors and medical students, and he was ill from childhood. He was driven abroad not only by romantic, bohemian restlessness, but by the search for a curative climate for his chronic ill-health.

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Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by Project Gutenberg.

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'Jekyll and Hyde' Analysis: Understanding the Author

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Treasure Island (1883)

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)

Kidnapped (1886)

Underwoods (1887)

The Wrecker (1892)

Catriona (1893)

The Ebb Tide (1894)

Weir of Hermiston (1896)

The Master of Ballantrae (1897)

St. Ives (1897) (with Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch)

A Lowden Sabbath Morn (1898)

The Sea Fogs (1907)

The Meaning Of Friendship (1909)

Will O' The Mill (1915)

The Black Arrow: A Tale of Two Roses (1926)

The Beach of Falesa (1963)

Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin (2000)
Collections
New Arabian Nights (1882)

The Merry Men: And Other Tales and Fables (1887)

Ballads (1890)

Island Nights' Entertainments (1893)

Songs of Travel: And Other Verses (1896)

Virginibus Puerisque: And Other Papers (1901)

The Story of a Lie: And Other Tales (1904)

Tales and Fantasies (1905)

New Poems And Variant Readings (1918)

A Child's Garden of Verses (1921)

Moral Emblems and Other Poems (1921)

Selected Writings (1947)

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde And Other Stories (1964)

The Suicide Club: And Other Stories (1970)

The Supernatural Short Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson (1976)

The Body Snatcher: And Other Stories (1980)

The Robert Louis Stevenson Treasury (1986) (with Alanna Knight)

The Lantern-Bearers: And other Essays (1988)
Primary Non Fiction
Travels With A Donkey in the Cevennes (1879)

The Old and New Pacific Capitals (1880)

The Silverado Squatters (1884)

Memories and Portraits (1887)

Across the Plains: With Other Memories And Essays (1892)

A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa (1892)

Vailima Letters (1896)

In the South Seas Being an Account of Experiences And Observations in the Marquesas, Paumotur And Gilbert Islands in the Course of Two Cruises, On the Yacht 'casco' (1888) And the Schooner 'equator' (1889) (1900)

The Amateur Emigrant (1988)
Short Stories
Thrawn Janet (1881)

The Body-Snatcher (1884)

Olalla (1885)

Markheim (1886)

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)

The Bottle Imp (1891)

The Beach of Falesa (1892)

The Ebb Tide (1893)

The Isle of Voices (1893)
The Adventures of the Hansom Cab A Lodging for the Night
The Master of Ballantrae (excerpt)
The Sire de Maletroit's Door Something in It The Song of the Morrow Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts Secondary
Robert Louis Stevenson: A Life Study Jenni Calder (1980)

Robert Louis Stevnson and His World David Daiches (1973)

Andrew Noble, Robert Louis Stevenson (1983)

Robert Kielty, Robert Louis Stevenson and the Fiction of Adventure (1965)

Stevenson and Victorian Scotland, ed. by Jenni Calder (1981)

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BBC Two - Writing Scotland - Robert Louis Stevenson

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Treasure Island (1883) The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) Kidnapped (1886) Underwoods (1887) The Wrecker (1892) Catriona (1893) The Ebb Tide (1894) Weir of Hermiston (1896) The Master of Ballantrae (1897) St.

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Small beginnings

In 1707, at the time of the Act of Union, Edinburgh was a small capital city, little more than a single street running west to east down a defensive crag from the Castle to Holyrood Palace, with narrow lanes - or wynds - branching off on both sides, in a layout that resembled the bones of a fish.

An overcrowded population, numbering in the region of 35,000, was crammed into tenement dwellings, some many stories high, to make the best use of the limited space, with commercial premises at street level.

A few miles to the north, was the port of Leith, a separate burgh devoted to trade and fishing, whose fortunes were tied to the capital, particularly through the supply of luxury goods from Europe and beyond. All around and easily viewed from the prominences of the city were the dairies and market gardens that provided Edinburgh's food, along with a scattering of mansion houses in a picturesque landscape.

Social intimacy was a feature of community life in Edinburgh throughout the first half of the 18th century. The wealthy and the poor lived in close proximity with face-to-face relationships, often in the same tenements though on different levels; the first and second floors having the highest social cachet.

They also frequented the same inns and alehouses, and the numerous clubs and societies that thrived in the 'Enlightenment'. Edinburgh embraced a wide spectrum of members from the educated artisan to the great aristocrat. Despite the rigours of the climate, and the notoriously filthy state of the streets and wynds, much of the social and commercial life of the city was conducted out of doors, in the regular markets and in the communal promenading that occurred each day.

Edinburgh had long supported the institutions of government, such as the law courts and the Church. In the last years of the independent Scottish parliament, another 'government' institution was created - the Bank of Scotland, founded in 1695 - which set in motion the development of Edinburgh as a financial centre.

Educational establishments, notably the University, also shaped the 'professional' character of the city. Yet the fortunes of Edinburgh languished in the first half of the 18th century.

Economic stagnation in Scotland as a whole also created an air of despondency, and political upheavals, such as the Porteous Riots of 1736 and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, were a cause of much concern.

A New Town

First proposed in 1752, the intention was to create a new and spacious cityscape of wide, symmetrical street, terraced town-houses, specialised shopping facilities and open squares and gardens on a separate green-field site immediately to the north.

The Old and New Towns were separated by a body of water known as the 'Nor Loch'. This was crossed by the construction of an artificial 'Mound' - using the excavated earth from the basements of new buildings - and was eventually drained to create Princes Street Gardens.

The New Town project was designed to house the wealthy, and to attract back to Scotland the absentee noblemen who now lived in London. These people, it was hoped, would spend their money in Scotland and support the kinds of luxury businesses and modern commerce that would bring much-needed prestige and prosperity to the capital city.

It was a patriotic project, with the names of the streets and the squares chosen to celebrate the Union and the Hanoverian monarchy, as well as the culture of Scotland. It was also designed to reflect new aspirations, as Scotland - following the blue-print described by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations - sought to enter the modern market age.

Built in several stages from the 1760s to the 1830s, the New Town of Edinburgh was the largest planned city development in the world at that time, and it proved an outstanding success in bringing commercial and cultural dynamism to the city.

The demand for luxury products to furnish the new houses supported a range of fine shops on Princes Street. Carriage-makers flourished since the broad, straight streets were now able to support a more sophisticated wheeled traffic than was ever possible in the Old Town.

The Carron Iron Company near Falkirk - the largest business in Scotland - produced an array of fancy domestic iron wares for the New Town, including cast iron grates to designs by Robert Adam. All of these developments generated a significant surge in well-paid working class employment. There was a parallel demand for professional people, many of whom lived in the New Town.

Separate lives

The Old Town, though still overcrowded, benefited from the general buoyancy of Edinburgh, with new building projects at the Courts and Exchange. There were also new traffic intersections, running north-south across the High Street to link the Mound with George lV Bridge, and further east at the Tron Church, linking another southern route to the new North Bridge and the road to Leith.

The port of Leith was not left behind in this dash for growth. New quays were added to the harbour to accommodate the growing traffic, and there was a new customs house in the classical style. With a growing reputation as a seaside resort, the development of golf links and the building of numerous 'marine villas', Leith supported its own genteel society, focused on a new Assembly Rooms.

It was testimony to the prestige of Edinburgh that at the height of this 'golden age', in 1822, King George lV made his celebrated visit to the Scottish capital - the first British monarch to travel north to Scotland in over a century.

The occasion was marked with great pomp and splendour with much of the ceremony - in full tartan regalia - organised by Sir Walter Scott as one of the leading lights of Scottish society.

By this stage, the people of Edinburgh were justly proud of their flourishing city, whose population had expanded to 138,000 in 1821. But gains in space, in amenity and beauty, with new luxury housing and conspicuous consumption for some was inevitably socially divisive.

The squalor of life for the poor in the overcrowded and disease-infested Old Town became increasingly marked. There were cholera outbreaks in the early 1830s, and such infamous outrages as the Burke and Hare murders of the 1820s - committed in order to supply medical students with anatomy subjects - gave a sinister edge to the 'douce' image of Edinburgh.

Like all great cities, Edinburgh had become a place of contrasts - of good and bad, desirable and undesirable. This was the price that was inevitably paid for the rise and prosperity of the capital of Scotland.

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In 1707, at the time of the Act of Union, Edinburgh was a small capital city, little more than a single street running west to east down a defensive crag from the Castle to Holyrood Palace, with narrow lanes - or wynds - branching off on both sides, in a layout that resembled the bones of a fish.

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s a scholar of Gothic fiction I research tales about vampires, ghosts and doppelgangers, and incestuous maniacs pursuing maidens down underground passages. What possible "truth" could such fictions offer? And even if they have truths to tell, what possible relevance could such discoveries have for a Christian audience? Many of my fellow critics would doubt that they have any but a negative truth to tell to religion. The taste for Gothic fiction begins in the Enlightenment period, when the truth claims of religion were being questioned. Maidens fleeing from the rapacious hands of murderous monks in the novels of Ann Radcliffe or Matthew Lewis represent for many the attempt to escape from the constrictions of Christian belief and its oppressive institutions into secular freedom. Encounters with ghostly figures are taken as Kantian attempts to test the limits of reason itself.

But in the 19th century, attention moves to the horrors that lurk in our own psyche. The unconscious comes to be a subject of attention and exploration in stories such as the celebrated Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Although the haunting by a second self may appear to confirm the existence of the supernatural, ever since Freud this apparition has been understood not as a true spiritual presence but as a figure of repression. The eeriness of two selves where there should only be one is, Freud argued, an irruption of disquiet caused by our separation from our origin in our mother's womb. Uncanny is unheimlich in German, or "unhomely", and Freud claims it is the home that we refuse to acknowledge and from which we are estranged which causes the double among other eerie manifestations. Freud's theory is used to account for the plethora of double figures from Frankenstein and his Creature, Poe's William Wilson, Dorian Gray and his portrait, and the tortured protagonists of the Tales of Hoffman, all of whom play out the horror of duality, of a subjectivity rendered uncanny.

In discussing these tales as critiques, Gothic scholars tend to stress their revelation of "cultural anxieties", and the way in which they undermine the moral and religious status quo. Dr Jekyll, for example, is a highly respected physician, who lives in a large and handsome house, and moves in elevated professional circles, in which his own reputation stands high. There is, however, a shady back door to his house, out of which the apish, squat figure of Hyde emerges, to act out violent assaults with monstrous malice. He contradicts the moral behaviour of Dr Jekyll and questions the integrity of his social persona, just as the Gothic scholar aims to lift the veil on Victorian hypocrisy.

What allows this kind of critique is the development of a particular form of subjectivity, which the philosopher Charles Taylor in A Secular Age calls the "buffered self". In his extensive study of how the secular emerged in the modern world, Taylor locates the heart of the change in a seismic shift from the "porous" to the "buffered" self. In pre-modern societies, people inhabit a divinely created cosmos, full of spirits, good and bad, fairies, angels and natural forces, which are seen also to have agency as "acts of God". Even inanimate objects, such as holy relics, can have power over us. Similarly, all levels of social organisation, from realm to parish and guild, are liturgically ordered and are grounded in a higher reality. The self in all this is open to the world, vulnerable and easily affected and possessed by outside forces, natural or supernatural, although the distinction itself is not easily made, since only gradually does an actual "natural" evolve.

Following Max Weber, Taylor uses the term, "disenchantment" to describe the dismantling of this social imaginary, by science and the Enlightenment, industrialisation and so on. In the process the self becomes "buffered", no longer vulnerable to the power of forces beyond the self. He no longer fears demons and thunderstorms and, more radically, they no longer exist for him. He possesses his own selfhood: even God is displaced as he becomes his own centre, with boundaries, social and metaphysical. Self-consciously, we are aware of the magical past, and we count ourselves lucky to have won through. We call the past "backward" and assume we have progressed.

In this account, the modern self is a secular one, deriving causation from scientific accounts, which are intelligible to the mind, which therefore, in a sense, remains emperor of its own experience.

This modern, buffered self is precisely the subjectivity the Gothic tale of the doppelganger seeks to question, showing that the buffers do not work. Taylor even argues that the buffered self deals with the power of desires and passions by denying them the religious meaning they once enjoyed, so that they are reduced to the status of bodily functions to be dealt with rather than being daimonic. It is his desires for forbidden pleasures that lead Jekyll to create Mr Hyde and thus deal surgically with an inconvenience.

This is not a religious conception of identity. For Augustine of Hippo in his fifth-century Confessions, desires need to be ordered but potentially desire itself leads to God, as in the famous line: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." Only a divine object can satisfy the power of desire.

The language of singularity, of "wholeness", only appears in the most recent liturgy, as an index of Christian decadence. Traditionally, the Christian self was a conflicted and dynamic subjectivity, and expressed in relation to a communal, wholly "porous" reality. St Paul is the architect of the flesh/spirit distinction, which is not, as is often assumed, a body/spirit dualism. The "flesh" Paul speaks of is not the body but the pull of all that enmeshes us in our selfish ego: anger and envy and ambition as well as sexual desires. "My sin," says Dorothy Sayers's Eve in one of her festival plays, "was intellectual".

Sin is being subject to forces within and without: it is a bad form of relationality and the answer is the society of the virtues, in which Christ clothes the self. The medieval play Everyman presents a kind of psychomachia, that is a play about the internal struggle of the soul. But it does so in terms of societies and characters who influence and accompany the soul for good or ill: beauty, good deeds and fellowship. In medieval Christianity the seven deadly sins and their opposing virtues were characters to put on and be lived. To be a Christian was to "put on" Christ, to dress up in his garments and share in his persona.

Nor, in the tradition, are Christians merely dual: saint and sinner. Their soul, Augustine believed, was a vestige of the Trinity, in its triple powers of memory, understanding and will. These derive from their Creator, and the long journey of the Confessions is the tale of the prodigal son, in which memory, ordered through the understanding, leads the will of Augustine to conversion in a story which is that of every believer. Augustine's understanding of the soul as vestige of the Trinity was hugely influential throughout the Middle Ages. Potentially, therefore, Christianity has an understanding of the self as dual or triple, or multiple, a relational subjectivity, which finds its selfhood in union with Christ and his body the church. Human beings are works in progress, and sites of a divine drama, wholly relational and porous.

While we live we shall always be self-divided. As St Paul wrote: "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil that I would not, that I do." And in showing us the darkness of the double self the Gothic, for all its horror and terror, tells us the truth: we are all Cain and Abel: "the whole seed of Adam, not divided/ But fearfully joined in the darkness of the double self". But this duality is our hope and not our despair.

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Gothic fiction tells us the truth about our divided nature | Alison Milbank

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s a scholar of Gothic fiction I research tales about vampires, ghosts and doppelgangers, and incestuous maniacs pursuing maidens down underground passages. What possible "truth" could such fictions offer? And even if they have truths to tell, what possible relevance could such discoveries have for a Christian audience?

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When Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species was published in 1859, many Victorians were thrown into panic and turmoil over what evolution could mean for their religious views and their way of life. There were many reasons that contributed to this worry, but one of the main culprits was the idea of de-evolution,...

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Charles Darwin's revolutionary idea of evolution sparked dramatic debate in the scientific and, most especially, religious communities, as well as inspiring a new wave of thought in the minds of the world. There was also plenty of controversy, particularly from the many believers of creationism during the Victorian era. But by denying creationism with his own theories, Darwin "made room for strictly scientific explanations of all natural phenomena," and as a result, initiated a "powerful intellectual and spiritual revolution" whose effects last to this day. Its profound impact meant that "nearly every field of social and cultural life was affected by the idea of evolution."

Charles Darwin is best known as the father of evolutionary biology and the theory of evolution by natural selection. In 1859, he published his most important and most influential work, On the Origin of Species, which was an immediate success, selling most of its 1,250 copies on the first day. In it, Darwin described the theory of evolution and natural selection. Through natural selection, the organisms that are most suited to their environment will be more likely to survive over their competition, improving the species over time. It can also be called the "survival of the fittest," as only the most capable will ultimately survive. Darwin was not the first to introduce the idea of evolution, which had been around long before his birth and was first presented to the public by Robert Chambers in "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation". However, Darwin was the first to carry out extensive research to back up the theory, as well as expanded upon other theories by suggesting the idea of evolution through random natural selection.

In this time of the Victorian era, almost all leading scientists and philosophers were Christian men who believed in creationism and that God had designed creatures to fit their environment perfectly. These Victorians, especially conservative theologians, strongly opposed his theories and continued to uphold the Bible's creationist teachings. Even some of the greatest minds of the era scoffed at evolution, including Albert Einstein, who, at the idea that randomness plays a vital role in natural selection, expressed his disapproval in his statement, "God does not play dice." Darwin pointed out that every aspect of these perfect designs could be explained through natural selection and that creation was contradicted by every part of the natural world. Evolution "dispelled any belief in the Christian dogma of creation" as it eliminated the need for some supernatural force as a creator or designer.

Darwin's idea of natural selection also helped to explain social evolution and development. More organized social groups would be stronger than less organized ones, and through natural selection be more likely to survive through wars or disasters. Inferior organization would thus be eliminated from the human ancestry, allowing the more developed groups to pass on their skills to the next generation.

In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson explains to the reader through Jekyll that man has a basic dual nature with both a calm, civilized side and a troglodytic, primitive being. In a way, his novel is a comment on Darwin's evolutionary theories. As Petri Liukkonen puts it, when attempting (and failing) to separate the two basic sides of himself, Dr. Jekyll "turns in his experiment the evolution backwards," revealing the "primitive background of a cultured human being." It is no coincidence that the book, published 27 years after Darwin's On the Origin of Species, inherits a corollary of evolution as the core of its plot. Stevenson turns the idea that we are animals into a man's struggle to separate that ancestry, only to find out that he can isolate it but cannot eliminate it.

"Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory shocked Victorians with the idea that humans are basically animals. Hyde represents the primitive, animal side of human nature, which is closer than Victorians liked to think." Aside from the effects on religion and science, the theory of evolution itself brought up another point - we humans are simply animals that evolved in the same way as every other animal. Charles Darwin once said: "Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal." We want to think of us as superior to the animals surrounding us, but evolution shows that we really are animals ourselves.

What was then a rebellious thought, Darwinism has now become nearly unanimously accepted by science. It has also become the basis of the modern philosophy of biology. But the most important contribution to both science and to society is that it, in a way, offers an explanation of the world around us. "The living world, through evolution, can be explained without recourse to supernaturalism." Darwin shows us a new way of thinking that in essence changes the world from God's playing field into a game of chance. No longer does the difference in religious beliefs tie up an effort to rationalize what seems to be an irrational universe, as natural selection allows us to simplify life, the universe, and everything into time, location, and a little bit of luck.

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Darwinism : The Most Important Contribution of the Victorian Era

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Charles Darwin's revolutionary idea of evolution sparked dramatic debate in the scientific and, most especially, religious communities, as well as inspiring a new wave of thought in the minds of the world. There was also plenty of controversy, particularly from the many believers of creationism during the Victorian era.

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The Industrial Revolution was a pivotal point in British history that occurred between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries and led to far reaching transformations of society. With the advent of revolutionary manufacturing technology productivity boomed.

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Victorian Literature, Energy, and the Ecological Imagination

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Reading Victorian literature and science in tandem, Victorian Literature, Energy, and the Ecological Imagination investigates how the concept of energy was fictionalized - both mystified and demystified - during the rise of a new resource-intensive industrial and economic order.

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October is the month of goblins, ghosts, and ghouls. While these imaginary creatures are surely scary, another sort of monster has fascinated and frightened us since 1886. That year, Robert Louis Stevenson published Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The tale has gripped generations of readers because it reminds us that we all have monsters lurking within.
Richard Mansfield depicts the dual personality of Dr. Jekyll in this famous double exposure photograph.
The Seeds of a Legendary Tale

Robert Louis Stevenson was born on November 13, 1850 in Edinburg, Scotland. Weak lungs inherited from his mother left Stevenson a sickly child and before he was two years old, a nurse by the name of Alison Cunningham joined the Stevenson family as Robert's nurse. Cunningham was a fervent Calvinist and these views permeated the stories she told Stevenson. Despite her good intentions, the ill and easily excited boy's imagination turned these stories into nightmares. Even as an adult, Stevenson would suffer from night terrors.

To appease his father, Stevenson went to Edinburg University to study engineering, in hopes to follow in the family footsteps of designing lighthouses. He abandoned engineering and began to study law which he too gave up to practice writing. His first published works were travel writings describing landscapes, the people he encountered, and the adventures had.

In 1876, he met his future wife, Fanny, in a small village in south-east Paris. She was ten years older, separated from her husband, and had two children from her previous marriage. In 1880, they were married in San Francisco. Fanny would become an indispensable critic and confidante in Stevenson's writing process.

Just like his travel writings, Stevenson grabbed inspiration for his fictional writings in his everyday life. Treasure Island started out as a treasure map drawn by his twelve-year-old stepson on a rainy summer day; however, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde did not begin on such a light note.

A Real-Life Split Personality

Deacon William Brodie-cabinet maker, town councilman, and head of The Incorporation of Wrights and Masons-lived in Edinburg, Scotland during the mid-1700's. Brodie was seen as an honorable member of society, making his living repairing locks and door mechanisms for homes all over town, which supported his alternative lifestyle in more ways than one.

Brodie's night life included being the head of a burglary gang, two mistresses, several children, and a gambling addiction. During his day job, Brodie would copy his client's keys with wax molds made from the original, so he could return later that night and steal from the homeowner. His scheme ended in 1786 when he attempted an armed robbery at Chessel Court, in his Majesty's excise office. Brodie was caught and hanged on October 1, 1788 on a gibbet he recently redesigned.
"The Execution of Deacon Brodie" by Alexander Hay Ritchie
Brodie Is a Household Name

Stevenson's father had actually hired Brodie to make some furniture for the family, and these pieces were still in the Stevenson home during the author's childhood. Brodie's legacy lived on this way, in the households of people all over Edinburgh. Although Brodie and Robert Louis Stevenson never met, Deacon Brodie's story was one known by every Scot. In his youth, Stevenson coauthored a play with W.E. Henley, titled Deacon Brodie or The Double Life. It was finally produced in 1882.

In the early fall of 1885, Fanny woke Robert Stevenson in the midst of a night terror. Stevenson was angry with Fanny for awakening him because he was "dreaming a fine bogey tale." The scenes from this nightmare were the foundation for Jekyll & Hyde. Stevenson wrote the novella feverishly, passing it to Fanny for review when he finished it. Fanny suggested that the work should be more allegorical, and Stevenson apparently took this criticism to heart. He claims to have burned the original manuscript and started from scratch. The publicized version of the story is allegorical, playing on the good and evil residing inside of every person.

An Instant Hit

Appealing to the social angsts of the Victorian era-struggling with identity, the technological advancements, and respectability made it an instantaneous hit that continues to spark interests in generations of today. Jekyll & Hyde has become iconic, adapted for countless plays, movies, and other manifestations of popular culture. Indeed, it was first adapted for the stage only a few years after publication.

When did you first encounter this legendary character? And why do you think we've been so enraptured with Jekyll & Hyde for so many years?

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October is the month of goblins, ghosts, and ghouls. While these imaginary creatures are surely scary, another sort of monster has fascinated and frightened us since 1886. That year, Robert Louis Stevenson published Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde .

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Deacon Brodie's pub at the top of the Royal Mile is a well-known Edinburgh landmark but how many people know the real story of his outrageous life and crimes?

On 1 October 1788 William Brodie was hanged for theft in the Lawnmarket in front of a crowd that was the largest seen in living memory.

He strode out to the gallows in fine clothes and a powdered wig. A fitting end to an extraordinary life.

It is said that Brodie's double life was the inspiration for Edinburgh author Robert Louis Stevenson's infamous character Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which was published a century later.

But who was Deacon Brodie?

He was 47 when he was hanged and until his arrest had managed to maintain the illusion of being a respectable craftsman.

"He was bourgeois, he was respectable, he was the sort of person whom the criminal classes were supposed to look up to," says Edinburgh University historian Owen Dudley Edwards.

The prestigious title of deacon did not refer to religion, as many assume, but instead to his presidency of one of Edinburgh's trades guilds.

His trade was as a cabinet-maker and his position as deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights made him a member of the town council.

"In those days it was inconceivable that the public would have a say in who their councillors would be," says author Ceitidh Mhoireach.

So Brodie, as a representative of a guild, was given a position of influence in the running of the city.

Both Brodie's grandfathers were renowned Edinburgh lawyers and his father was a successful businessman.

Brodie himself was a fine craftsman specialising in domestic furniture such a cupboards and cabinets - crucially, he was also a talented locksmith.

Through his work he had access to the houses of very rich people and was able to make impressions of keys which meant he could come back at night and rob them.

It is thought his criminal career began in 1768 when he copied keys to a bank door and stole £800.

But it was not until more than a decade later that Brodie's crime spree got going properly.

Brodie's father died of palsy in 1782 and the son became a wealthy man.

His father left him £10,000 in cash alone, a fortune in those days, plus at least four houses and the business.

But by this time his lifestyle was getting very expensive.

He had been a member of The Cape, the most exclusive club in Edinburgh, but over time his interests turned to a disreputable tavern in Fleshmarket Close, which was notorious for late-night drinking and gambling with cards and dice.

He was also keen on gambling on cock fighting.

"He would appear to have lost a lot of money," says criminal lawyer Iain MacDhugaill.

In addition to his gambling, he was also supporting two mistresses and five children.

He ran up debts during the night but his daytime business was thriving.

Private homes

However, Brodie seems to have wanted to supplement his income.

In the summer of 1786 an unusual Englishman arrived in the city.

Things might have turned out differently if George Smith and Brodie had never met.

The pair soon became extremely busy targeting businesses and private homes in the Old Town.

Towards the end of 1786 Brodie and Smith robbed a goldsmith's and a tobacconist's.

On Christmas Eve they made off with a major haul from Bruce Brothers, including watches, rings and lockets.

Before long they got involved with another two criminals, John Brown and Andrew Ainslie.

By the summer of 1787 they had ventured further afield to Leith where they stole tea, a valuable commodity at the time, from a grocer's shop.

Previous robbery

Shortly after this they stole the ceremonial mace from the University of Edinburgh.

The gang were riding high and decided on their most daring crime yet.

"They tried, very audaciously, to steal the revenues of Scotland," says author Rick Wilson.

The Excise Office in Edinburgh was in Chessel's Court at the bottom of the Royal Mile.

For this job, possibly for the first time, the gang were armed with pistols and, also unusually for them, they broke in.

They were disturbed and fled with just £16. It was a fiasco and it led to the gang falling out.

John Brown was tempted by the reward of £150 being offered for information about a previous robbery and went to the sheriff's clerk to name Ainslie and Smith as the culprits.

When they were arrested Brodie feared the game was up and prepared to flee. He took the stagecoach to London and then a ship to Holland.

But the reward for Brodie's capture led to him being tracked down and discovered as he hid in a cupboard in an inn.

He was returned to Edinburgh where he stood trial with Smith.

His trial lasted just 21 hours.

He was hanged in front of a crowd of 40,000.

The Real Jekyll & Hyde? Sgeulachd Deacon Brodie, broadcast at 21:00 on 29 January on BBC ALBA.

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Deacon Brodie's pub at the top of the Royal Mile is a well-known Edinburgh landmark but how many people know the real story of his outrageous life and crimes? On 1 October 1788 William Brodie was hanged for theft in the Lawnmarket in front of a crowd that was the largest seen in living memory.

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Description

This account of the case of 'Louis V' (Vivet) was published later in the same year as Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It describes the case of a patient who suffered trauma which changed his personality, further changes being induced by doctors through the agency of selected metals and electricity. These changes inhibited either side of the brain, inducing hemiplegia (paralysis on the opposite side of the body). Louis Vivet, the first classified case of multiplex personality disorder, was said to have had eight personalities, each of which had a separate memory.

Who was Frederick Myers?

The writer of this account, Frederick Myers, was a literary critic who went on to study psychical research, scientifically examining the areas of dreams, clairvoyance, hallucinations and consciousness. Myers wrote to Stevenson soon after the publication of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, suggesting some alterations, such as having Hyde attack a woman rather than a male MP, questioning the similarity between Jekyll's and Hyde's handwriting, and proposing a loss of consciousness at the point of transformation. Stevenson was interested in Myers points, asked for elaborations, and wrote back - 'With almost every word I agree - much of it I even knew before'. But despite his interest in Myers' ideas, and Myers' continued insistence that his suggested changes would make the work 'as perfect as possible', Stevenson did not make any changes to the text. Myers sent Stevenson a copy of this essay on Louis V.

What does the text indicate about attitudes to personality change at the time?

Though this case was not a source for the novel, it does show an underlying system of values surrounding mental states and dispositions. On pp. 651-52 'self-control', 'modesty' and 'duty' (attributes of a manly character) are seen as 'higher'; they are 'qualities which man [ sic] has developed as he has risen from the savage level'. These were retained when the right half of Louis Vivet's brain was inhibited; when the left half was inhibited, and the right side of the body paralysed, 'he becomes, as one may say, not only left-handed but sinister; he manifests himself through nervous arrangements which have reached a lower degree of evolution'.

The fact that Stevenson has Hyde sharing Jekyll's tastes, and Jekyll enjoying the freedom of amorality that Hyde allows him, shows Stevenson's critiquing of the ideas of a hierarchy of mental 'worth' in late-Victorian male society.

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'Multiplex Personality' from The Nineteenth Century

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This account of the case of 'Louis V' (Vivet) was published later in the same year as Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde . It describes the case of a patient who suffered trauma which changed his personality, further changes being induced by doctors through the agency of selected metals and electricity.

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The subtle horror of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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The cold and rainy nights of winter mark the traditional season of the ghost and horror story. TV drama has already begun to fill our nightly screens with murder mysteries and the supernatural - witness the (controversially early) Sunday evening adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The strange case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, first published in 1886.

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mong the many screen adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" is a seven-minute Tom and Jerry film made by Hanna-Barbera in 1947. Here, a saucer of milk spiked with moth balls and bug powder is enough to transform an ordinary, decent soul - the mouse - into a monster. After a few sips, Jerry swells into supermouse, terrorising Tom, who normally holds the upper paw. At the end of "Dr Jekyll and Mr Mouse", Tom tries lapping up the milk - only to be reduced to the size of a fly. The pair exit with Jerry in pursuit, wielding a swatter.

The same storyline drives another cartoon of the 1940s, "Mighty Mouse Meets Jekyll and Hyde Cat", though this time it is the cat who mixes a cocktail in the doctor's laboratory, changing from cute puss into a beast with fangs and fiendish claws. There is a Daffy Duck Jekyll and Hyde, and Bugs Bunny also makes use of it. Back in the human zone, there have been Abbott and Costello and Jerry Lewis versions of Stevenson's novella. In 1925, Stan Laurel starred in Dr Pyckle and Mr Pryde, which competed with When Quackel Did Hyde of 1920. There are various pornographic adaptations, including Dr Sexual and Mr Hyde. Five separate editions of the book were issued in France in 1947, not long after the end of a different horror story. Between 1950 and 1951, Japanese publishers offered readers seven translations to choose from, including one in graphic-novel form.

"Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" belongs to everyone who has ever referred to themselves in the third person, or cursed their own "split personality", or praised their "better nature". The poet Hugo Williams has compressed the essence into a single line - "God give me strength to lead a double life" - a plea to be in two places at once, not necessarily legitimately, without the inconvenience of a guilty conscience. Stevenson's respectable physician Henry Jekyll appears to have had a similar desire, though his appeal was not to the deity but the pharmaceutical cabinet, with disastrous results.

"Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (the definite article is missing from the original title) was written in about six weeks in the autumn of 1885. It was Stevenson's response to a request from the publisher Charles Longman for a ghost story for the Christmas number of Longman's Magazine, in which he gave readers a taste of his best authors. The legend put about by RLS's stepson Lloyd Osbourne has it that he wrote a draft in three days, after being awakened from a dream, then threw it into the fire when his wife Fanny, Lloyd's mother, complained that he had "missed the allegory". After a brief period of reflection, Stevenson wrote it all out again, "in another three days of feverish industry".

Lloyd was a charming teller of tales about his stepfather, but not a reliable one. Letters make it plain that Stevenson spent at least six weeks on the revision. And even if an early version really was burned - "imagine my feelings as we saw those precious pages wrinkling and blackening and turning into flames", Lloyd wrote - there still exist two full drafts of the novella.

Fanny, however, was right to stress the importance of the missing element. It clearly is an allegory: in real life, people do not split into separate selves, with different bodily characteristics and ages (Hyde is notably smaller and younger than Jekyll). But an allegory of what? Stevenson's mother Margaret, who lived for three years after the death of her son in Samoa in 1894, was touched to learn that the story had been interpreted by a Church of Scotland minister as a parable on the wages of sin, and preached as a sermon from the pulpit. Stevenson's first biographer, Graham Balfour (1901), tells us that it was also "made the subject of leading articles in religious newspapers". Stevenson might have smiled indulgently at his acceptance by the kirk many years after he had fallen out with his father over fundamental religious differences, but he would have disapproved of the simplistic reading of his story as a lesson on the perils of straying from the path of righteousness.

An equally common Victorian reading of the story was as a moral tale on the horrors of the sexual appetite unleashed. This aspect was emphasised in early theatrical adaptations, of which there were several in the decade after publication (they included Dr Freckle and Mr Snide at Dockstader's Minstrel Hall, New York, in 1887). The most popular was the one starring Richard Mansfield, which was up and running a year after the appearance of the book and continued, on one side of the Atlantic and then the other, into the next century.

In adapting the novella for the stage, Thomas R Sullivan was obliged to negotiate an inconvenient absence in the original text: it contains no women characters, apart from an anonymous housemaid and a cook. Sullivan therefore presented Mansfield with Agnes Carew as the object of Jekyll's affection - a dramatic invention indeed, since it is her father, Sir Danvers Carew, who is the most prominent victim of Hyde's violence. In a rival production, which opened in London two days after Mansfield's but was closed down by Longman in a dispute over performance rights, love interest was provided by Sybil Howell, the daughter of a clergyman who is himself an adapter's fancy. The script of a 1931 film version, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, had a barmaid called Ivy performing a striptease in front of Jekyll. In an interview reprinted in the invaluable Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Companion, edited by Harry M Geduld, Mamoulian described the scene, which was cut from the finished movie: "She keeps throwing away the stockings, the garters, then the brassiere, the panties." In Mamoulian's view, the point of the story was that Dr Jekyll "would like to indulge in all sort of sexual excess and debauchery". Hyde, his hidden self, was brought into existence to give him licence to do so.

Stevenson deplored the attempts to plumb his divided hero's psychology in the various theatrical productions. In a private letter to the editor of the New York Sun in 1887, written from the Adirondacks, where he had gone for the sake of his health, he dismissed Mansfield's portrayal as an offshoot of modern society. Hyde, Stevenson insisted, "is no more sexual than another". He was certainly not, "Great Gods! a mere voluptuary", though there was "no harm" in that. "But people are so filled full of folly and inverted lust, that they can think of nothing but sexuality."

There are many other allegorical interpretations of the story. Elementary Freudianism sees Jekyll as embodying the ego (rational), Hyde the id (instinctive). Jekyll has been seen as a drunk, a drug addict, a pederast, a closet homosexual. In an excellent introduction to the Edinburgh University Press edition of the novella, Richard Dury ranges over a variety of possible readings, noting that of several "socially condemned activities" that Hyde is associated with, "veiled allusions to homosexuality are particularly frequent". The double life of Jekyll and Hyde can be seen as parallel to "the necessarily double life of the Victorian homosexual". Even though Stevenson may not have intended leaving them, there are suggestive markers throughout the text: the suspected blackmail of Jekyll by his "young man", his "favourite"; the "very pretty manner of politeness of Sir Danvers Carew" when approached in the street - terms that may have denoted forbidden liaisons to a Victorian readership. The hidden door by which he enters Jekyll's house is the "back way", even "the back passage". It happens that the year of composition, 1885, was the year in which an amendment to an act of parliament made homosexual acts between men a criminal offence.

The most popular allegorical reading in our own day suggests that, although the action is set in Soho, the atmosphere is really that of Edinburgh, capital of Scotland and RLS's birthplace. In this view, the moral focus of the story is the Scottish character, burdened by dual nationality (Scottish and British), caught between two tongues (Scots and English), its instinctive spontaneity repressed by a Calvinistic church - the very church that once came between Stevenson and his father, and caused a split in the family. Edinburgh is a city starkly divided into two: the foggy old town up on the hill, once the site of colourful crimes such as bodysnatching and of public hangings in the Grassmarket; and the splendid New Town to the north, on the other side of the then newly laid railway tracks. In Glasgow, where I grew up, the common perception of Edinburgh was of a cloudy inner life (old town) shielded by a genteel exterior (New Town). It was - how could you avoid saying so? - a Jekyll-and-Hyde sort of place.

The reclaiming of Stevenson's most famous work as a Scottish fable has a modern feel to it in this era of aspirationally independent Scotland, but it was suggested as early as 1915 by an American, Clayton Hamilton, who believed that the story might be "conceived as happening among the gloomy doorways and narrow wynds of the Scottish capital". GK Chesterton went further, stating that "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", though "presented as happening in London", was "very unmistakably happening in Edinburgh" - which is plausible, but unmistakably not the case. If Stevenson had wanted to set his story in Edinburgh, rather than the streets of Soho, he could have done so; if he had intended it to be read as a Scottish story, he would have made it one. After all, he had written plenty of others. He had even written an early study of the split personality in the form of a play, Deacon Brodie or the Double Life, in collaboration with his friend WE Henley. It is based on the career of William Brodie, who lived in Edinburgh's old town in the late 18th century, and was one of its more colourful criminals. In Stevenson and Henley's play, Brodie is a respectable cabinet-maker and deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights and Masons by day. At night he dons a mask and burgles the houses of well-to-do Edinburgh citizens. In 1788, the deacon was caught and hanged on a scaffold that had been designed according to his own technical specifications.

It is, of course, possible to think of "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" as a study of the Scottish character - or of any of the other topics mentioned. All are reasonable suggestions, and most can be supported to some extent by textual evidence. The author himself (not necessarily the most reliable guide) stated that the central problem was Jekyll's hypocrisy. In his letter to the New York Sun on the subject of Mansfield's sexual interpretation, he wrote that it was Jekyll's "selfishness and cowardice" that had let out the beast Hyde, "not this poor wish to have a woman".

Above all, however, Stevenson was against simplicity. He might have agreed with Fanny that his original attempt had "missed the allegory", but he did not wish to have the allegory rigidly defined. "Everything is true," he told Sidney Colvin, "only the opposite is true too; you must believe both equally or be damned." Jekyll is a true type, but no more so than Hyde; truer than either is Jekyll-and-Hyde, that combination we all recognise. As Stevenson's friend the poet and folklorist Andrew Lang recalled: "He told me once he meant to write a story about a fellow who was two fellows, which did not, when thus stated, seem a fortunate idea." They are often the best ones.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, is at the BFI, London SE1 until December 30. Box office: 020 7928 3232.

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The beast within: Interpeting Jekyll and Hyde

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mong the many screen adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" is a seven-minute Tom and Jerry film made by Hanna-Barbera in 1947. Here, a saucer of milk spiked with moth balls and bug powder is enough to transform an ordinary, decent soul - the mouse - into a monster.

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My principal qualification for writing about Robert Louis Stevenson is affection. He is the only author of whom I can say that I have been reading him all my life. was the first book I read that had chapters, and I can still recall the maroon binding and the weight of the book in my hand. At that time I lived with my parents in the valley of Glenalmond, at the edge of the Scottish Highlands. Perhaps Stevenson knew of that place, for Lord Glenalmond plays a role in his last work, Weir of Hermiston. I had only to look out the windows of our house to see the stark hills, the heather, and the bracken, the landscape so bare of hiding places, over which David Balfour and Alan Breck made their way. And in those years of genderless reading it never occurred to me that I could not go with them.

Besides being the first full-length book I read, Kidnapped was the first book whose author's name I knew. Indeed. I hadn't previously known there was such a thing as an author. Books had fallen from the bookshelves like leaves from the trees. I did not question their origins; they were absolute in themselves. But in the case of the maroon book the music of Stevenson's name impressed me. I also owned a copy ofA Child's Garden of Verses. "My Shadow." with its mixture of observation and mystery, was one of my favorite poems.

Such early recognition might seem like a good thing for an author's reputation, but it is in fact part of the long process by which Stevenson's work has been devalued. That I and so many others came to his work so young has made us consider him a children's author from whom we have little to learn as adults. This opinion is one that his contemporaries would not have shared, either in his particular case or as a general rule. Victorian adults felt free to embrace so-called children's books without apology. Stevenson's father often reread The Parent's Assistant, a volume of children's stories, and Virginia Woolf records being taken to Peter Pan on her twenty-third birthday with no signs that this was a childish treat.

Like the shadow in his poem, Stevenson's reputation has waxed and waned at an alarming rate. The blaze of hagiography in which he died seems to have incited critics to special fury. F. R. Leavis, in The Great Tradition, dismissed Stevenson as a romantic writer guilty of fine writing, and the critical community in general has designated him a minor author not worthy of the serious admiration that we accord his friend Henry James. People comment with amazement that Borges and Nabokov liked his work. This year marks the centenary of Stevenson's death, and I am not alone in believing that it is time to reconsider his reputation.

Two obvious factors in Stevenson's fall from grace are quantity and fashion. The list of his publications is much longer than most people realize, but the few works by which we remember him do not constitute a recognizable oeuvre. And literary taste has swung in a direction that Stevenson disliked and did his best to avoid-namely, pessimism. While admiring the early Hardy, for instance, he hated Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and he took James to task for The Portrait of a Lady. John Galsworthy commented memorably on this when he said that the superiority of Stevenson over Hardy was that Stevenson was all life, while Hardy was all death.

There are, of course, more-crucial reasons why Stevenson's shadow has dwindled. He often falls short of our expectations of a serious novelist; his plots tend to be too simple in psychological terms and too fantastic in terms of events. The former problem stemmed partly from his theory of fiction; the latter he knew to be a fault and blamed on the tales of his childhood. Typically he worked on several projects at once, a sign of his natural prolixity but also of the difficulty he had in reaching conclusions. History, which gave him so many of his plots, was not so generous with endings, and in trying to invent them, Stevenson often either overreached the bounds of credibility, as in The Master of Ballantrae, or fell into flatness, as in Kidnapped.

The most complete account we have of his theory of fiction is contained in "A Humble Remonstrance," the essay he wrote in reply to James's "The Art of Fiction." Here we see him rebutting James's view that art should compete with life:

Man's one method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality .... Life is monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, selfcontained, rational, flowing, and emasculate .... The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life, which are forced and material . . . but by its immeasurable difference from life, which is designed and significant.

In fact many of his critics have brought just this charge against Stevenson: that in the pursuit of significance he departed too far from life.

I would argue that in his best work-most notably Kidnapped, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Weir of Hermiston -Stevenson, perhaps in spite of himself, failed to emasculate his art. He opens his eyes, and ours, to the confusion of reality, and what he shows us is something that the modern reader is vitally concerned with: the inescapable duality of our existence.

Shortly before his death Stevenson wrote,

I cannot get used to this world, to procreation, to heredity, to sight, to hearing; the commonest things are a burthen. The prim obliterated polite face of life, and the broad, bawdy, and orgiastic-or maenadic-foundations, form a spectacle to which no habit reconciles me.

He dramatized this spectacle with lyrical specificity and, as his work matured, increasing subtlety. And no one has ever described better what I saw from the window of my first bedroom.

HOW Stevenson grew to be preoccupied with duality can be seen in even a brief examination of his life. He was born on November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh. His father, Thomas, came from a line of lighthouse engineers. His mother, Margaret, was the youngest of the thirteen children of the Reverend Lewis Balfour. Louis, as the boy was called, had a formidable Scottish nanny, Cummy, who he later claimed was a major influence. By the time he was seven, the family had moved to 17 Heriot Row in the New Town of Edinburgh, a highly respectable address from which Stevenson later ventured forth to explore the more salacious neighborhoods of the city.

He began writing at an early age, dictating "A History of Moses" to his mother when he was six. Unlike me, he knew about authors and referred to himself as one. He read widely, not least history, and grew up vividly aware that Scotland was divided by both politics and temperament. The natural enmity between the cold, proper Lowland Scots and the fiery Highlanders informs much of his work.

His parents were proud of his precocious literary endeavors, but it never occurred to them that their son would be a writer, he was destined to be a lighthouse engineer. To this end Louis studied engineering at Edinburgh University-very lackadaisically, by all accounts-and accompanied his father to remote lighthouses, trips he later made use of in his work, especially Kidnapped. His parents seem to have tolerated his lack of studiousness, but in 1873 there was a terrible crisis when they discovered that Louis had lost his faith. Fortunately, they do not seem to have been aware that he also was involved with prostitutes. Partly as a result of these quarrels Louis collapsed and was sent to recuperate in the south of France. There, in a determined effort to improve his writing, he continued to play "the sedulous ape," as he described it, imitating Wordsworth, Defoe, Hawthorne, and Baudelaire, among others.

Over the next few years he wrote a number of essays, including a highly controversial one in which he took Robert Burns to task for philandering, and reached a modus vivendi with his parents. They gave him an allowance of about £80 a year, and he gave up engineering in favor of law. In 1875 he was admitted to the Scottish bar; his total earnings as a solicitor are recorded as four guineas.

The rapprochement between parents and son weathered even the scandal of Louis's marriage. In 1876, while visiting a cousin in Grez, France, Stevenson met Fanny Osbourne. She was an American, ten years older than he, and estranged from her husband. She had come to Grez with her two children, Lloyd and Belle, to recover from the death of her third child. Later Osbourne claimed that Stevenson fell in love with her at first sight. This seems to have been pure fabrication, but not long after this he visited her in Paris. Osbourne gave an odd picture of her volatile suitor "I do wish Louis wouldn't burst into tears in such an unexpected way," she wrote. He also suffered from cataracts of laughter the only cure for which, he claimed, was to have someone bend back his fingers. Osbourne and Stevenson almost certainly became lovers around this time.

In 1878 Osbourne returned to America and Stevenson, briefly, to Scotland. That autumn he was back in France, where he bought a donkey for sixty-five francs. He named her Modestine, and during their twelve-day journey in the Cévennes he reduced her value by nearly half. Later he immortalized her in Travels With a Donkey. We do not know on exactly what terms he and Osbourne had parted, but in July of 1879 she sent him a telegram. In the most romantic gesture of his life he set sail secretly for America. His account of the voyage and the subsequent train journey to San Francisco was so grim that his father persuaded him not to publish The Amateur Emigrant. By the time he reached Osbourne, in Monterey, Stevenson needed a nurse more than a wife. Their marriage, the following year, was described by both parties as taking place in extremis.

Fanny is a major battleground for Stevenson biographers, as two recent books-Robert Louis Stevenson, by Frank McLynn, and Dreams of Exile, by Ian Bell-demonstrate. Whatever came later, it seems clear that the unlikely couple were initially in love. For Stevenson, Fanny was the apogee of several significant relationships with older women. As for her, surely love was the only argument for marrying a sickly, impoverished writer. Later Fanny advertised herself as Stevenson's muse, collaborator, and nursemaid, claims that are vigorously, and often convincingly, challenged by Frank McLynn. Still, I find myself reluctant to apportion blame. Who can say who are the criminals in love? Stevenson lived with Fanny for fourteen years, and during that time wrote the works by which we know him.

For the first few years of their marriage the Stevensons shuttled back and forth between Scotland and the Continent, finally settling in 1884 in the English seaside town of Bournemouth. Louis spent much of the next three years in bed, and later described himself as having lived there "like a weevil in a biscuit." During this time he became better acquainted with Henry James, who came to Bournemouth to visit another invalid: his sister, Alice. The two passed from admiration into a friendship that survived a number of aesthetic disagreements. Why not write about women? James suggested. What about action? Stevenson urged. How different the work of each might have been if he had heeded the other.

In spite of ill health Stevenson was wonderfully productive. In rapid succession he published A Child's Garden of Verses, Jekyll and Hyde, and Kidnapped. By the time he and Fanny left Britain, in 1887, he was a well-known writer. Thomas Stevenson had died in May of that year, and with his death Louis felt free to go abroad. In August be and Fanfly sailed to America, and for a time they led an extreme version of the itinerant life that used to be common for writers. Eventually they made their way to the South Seas and Samoa, where in 1889 they bought an estate called Vailima. To the public this was the realization of the myth: the author of Treasure Island was now living on his own island.

Life at Vailima, however, was far from idyllic. Fanny, who had long suffered from nervous illnesses, became increasingly difficult, and Stevenson, though he was earning more than ever before, was worried about money. These anxieties go some way toward explaining why, in spite of his better health, so little of the work by which we remember him comes from this period. Not that he was idle-he wrote constantly, but mostly travel books and a history of Samoa, all of which provoked James to urge him not to squander his gifts.

Perhaps James was prescient. On December 3, 1894, Stevenson wrote fiction in the morning, wrote letters in the afternoon, and died in the evening. He was helping Fanny to make mayonnaise dressing, adding the oil drop by drop, when he collapsed. By dawn the following day the Samoans were at work cutting a road up the slopes of Mount Vaca with knives and axes. That afternoon his coffin was carried in relays to the summit.

TO map Stevenson's life is to produce a complex diagram in which we can see, I think, why dualism was such a central concern for him. As the bohemian child of conventional parents, as a Lowland Scot, as an invalid, as an exile, he was always living a double life, trying to be in two places, or two postures, at the same time, and nowhere more so than in his difficult relationship with his father. This relationship was for Stevenson the central dualism: his father was the prim face, he was the orgiastic foundations, and the resulting quarrel between them was simultaneously a great force and a great barrier in his work. In Treasure Island and Kidnapped he offered a preliminary solution to the quarrel by killing off the narrator's father-in the opening chapters of the former, before the novel begins in the latter. Until after Thomas's death Stevenson had trouble keeping fictional fathers alive.

Like many great writers, Stevenson was slow to discover his true subjects. "I sit for a long while silent on my eggs," he wrote. He was thirty when he began what would be his first success, Treasure Island. The genesis of the novel is revealing. The family was staying in the small Scottish town of Braemar. One rainy afternoon Stevenson drew a map of an island and began to make up a story to go with it to entertain his stepson, Lloyd. Thomas Stevenson was visiting at the time and enthusiastically contributed suggestions to his son's project. Early chapters were read aloud to the appreciative family. The novel went on to be serialized in a boys' magazine and was published as a book in 1883. It is surely no accident that Stevenson found narrative luck on the first occasion for which we have any record of his father's approval.

Stevenson's avowed aim in Treasure Island was to write a story for boys-"No need of psychology or fine writing," he said. Many readers, including James, praised the novel. Probably no one at the time, including Stevenson himself, recognized his most significant accomplishment. With the tap of Pew's cane and a few choruses of yo-ho-ho, he liberated children's writing from the heavy chains of Victorian didacticism.

One of the great pleasures of reconsidering Stevenson was rereading Kidnapped I came back to it hesitantly, nervously, expecting to take my seven-year-old self to task, and found from the beautiful, stately opening pages, wherein David Balfour leaves his home for the last time, that 1 was captivated. Alan Breck remains a wonderfully jaunty character, and I was struck afresh by Stevenson's gift for describing landscapes that both shape and reveal the actions of the characters.

Only after I closed the book did it occur to me that the story was set almost a century before Stevenson's birth. I attribute this oversight not to my obtuseness but to his genius. As he liberated children's literature from didacticism, so he liberated the historical novel from creaking obeisance toward the past. He presented the characters in a prose that is lively and lucid and, best of all, unstrained by nostalgia.

Jekyll and Hyde, the quintessential novel of a double life, was written "in a white heat" around the same time as Kidnapped, and had a long hatching period-Stevenson had known about Deacon Brodic, the eighteenth-century Edinburgh cabinetmaker on whom he based Jekyll and Hyde, since childhood. The novel, published in 1886, achieved something even better than good reviews; it became the subject of numerous sermons. Forty thousand copies were sold within the first six months, and since then the phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has entered the culture.

To go back and read what Stevenson actually wrote is disorienting for several reasons. The novel is firmly in the romantic tradition wherein amazing events are reported by a dry-as-dust narrator. We tend to overlook the cold, silent lawyer Utterson who guides us through the story and who, precisely because of his reserve, is the best possible witness to the horror of Hyde. Part of our disorientation is not merely forgetfulness but the result of Stevenson's cunning design. The labyrinthine streets through which we pursue Hyde increasingly depart from the map of the known city. Slowly but inexorably we are being led into a strange country, where the relationship between Jekyll's prim white hand and Hyde's orgiastic hairy paw will be revealed. The two are not merely opposites, or alter egos. In Nabokov's helpful analogy Hyde is a precipitate of Jekyll. We might also think of him as Jekyll's son.

Critics have speculated that both Jekyll and Hyde are guilty of sexual misdemeanors. But I read the novel as essentially Scottish; the sins I attribute to Jekyll are the Edinburgh ones of secrecy and puritanism that governed Stevenson's youth and my own. Whatever the author had in mind, vagueness has served the novel well. Sin dates, and modern readers, although frustrated, we left free to imagine their own version of horror.

Between Jekyll and Hyde and Weir, Stevenson wrote several more novels, among them The Master of Ballantrae and David Balfour. The former is commonly regarded as his greatest full-length work, although the plot, about a life-long duel between two brothers, one of whom turns out to be an incubus, defeated even as staunch an admirer as André Gide. What is notable in terms of Stevenson's development as a writer is that the father remains alive through the first half of the novel and that the characters include a strong-minded, intelligent woman.

Both these promises are fulfilled in the unfinished Weir of Hermiston. Here Stevenson at last explored the quarrel between father and son and created two superb female characters. Lord Braxfleld, the notorious Scots hanging judge, was, like Deacon Brodie, a famous Edinburgh character. Stevenson became convinced that Braxfleld was his great subject, the one that would allow him to achieve the epic qualities his work to that point had lacked.

The plot combines the dazzle of reality with the, significance of art. Archie, the only son of ill-matched parents, is raised at Hermiston by his religious mother, who unthinkingly teaches him to criticize his father. After her death he moves to Edinburgh to live with his father, the judge. The crisis between them comes when Archie, now a law student, watches his father sentence a man to death.

Archie denounces the hanging as murder, and his father banishes him to Hermiston. There the older Kirstie, his housekeeper, falls in love with him, while he falls in love with her niece, the younger Kirstie. The idyllic pursuit of the latter, secret relationship is interrupted by the arrival of Frank, an lago-like figure. Frank discovers the relationship and, with the worst intentions, warns Archie against it. His advice is seconded by the older Kirstie, for very different reasons. In chapter nine we see Archie attempting to act on it.

From letters and notes we have an idea of how Stevenson imagined the remainder of the book. Frank was going to seduce the younger Kirstie. Archie would shoot Frank and be arrested. He would come to trial, and in some way-Stevenson was desperate to make this work-he would be tried by his father and condemned to death.

All this, whatever its credibility, does have the resonance of an epic. It is also Stevenson's profoundest exploration of duality. Finally he laid aside the subterfuges of the supernatural and created characters who are both in opposition to each other and at war within themselves. In his single person the judge upholds the polite face of society while remaining firmly rooted in the orgiastic foundations, and it is crucial to the tragedy that Axvhie is his father's son as well as his mother's. Here we see him describing his tangled feelings:

I will be baldly frank. I do not love my father, I wonder sometimes if! do not hate him. There's my shame; perhaps my sin; at least, and in the sight of God, not my fault. How was I to love him?... You know the way he talks?... My soul is sick when he begins with it;! could smite him in the mouth.

And yet, Archie goes on, he has asked his father's pardon and placed himself wholly in his hands. The two Kirsties also show us terrific vitality and subtlety of motivation.

That Stevenson died in the midst of this story is tragic; that he lived to write it at all is a marvel. The canon has taught us to value a body of work over a single work, but at this late date in the twentieth century, drowning in books, surely we can afford to esteem quality even when it comes without quantity. If Stevenson deserves a place in our adult lives, his reputation must, like a number of authors', rest on only a few works. As we love Shelley for Frankenstein, Di Lampedusa forThe Leopard, Fournier for The Lost Domain, so we can love Stevenson for his vaulted ambition and because in those last days of his life, at least, he wrote pages worthy of that ambition and of our admiration. He worked on Weir of Hermiston intermittently from 1892 onward. The last words were dictated the morning of his death.

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The Double Life of Robert Louis Stevenson

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My principal qualification for writing about Robert Louis Stevenson is affection. He is the only author of whom I can say that I have been reading him all my life. was the first book I read that had chapters, and I can still recall the maroon binding and the weight of the book in my hand.

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Robert Louis Stevenson | Books | The Guardian

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Up in smoke: should an author's dying wishes be obeyed?

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A brief summary of his life ( or see our recommended Biographies).

An Imaginative Childhood

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was born 13 November 1850, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was the only child of respectable middle-class parents. His father, Thomas, belonged to a family of engineers who had built most of the deep-sea lighthouses around the coast of Scotland. His mother, Margaret Isabella Balfour, came from a family of lawyers and church ministers.

Throughout his childhood, he suffered chronic health problems that confined him to bed. These illnesses persisted throughout his life, taking the form of fevers, coughing, bronchial infections, and eventually the "Bluidy Jack," a hemorrhaging of the lungs.

Stevenson had a limited formal education as his health kept him either at home or retreating to health spas with his family. Perhaps his strongest influence at this time was his nurse, Alison Cunningham (aka Cummy), who regularly read him religious stories, often from the Old Testament, Catechisms, and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. This somewhat isolated childhood led to the development of a fine imagination through which dreams of being a writer developed.
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Becoming a Writer

In 1867, Stevenson entered Edinburgh University as a science student, where it was understood that he would follow in the family tradition to become a civil engineer and join their lighthouse building firm. However, he spent much of his time studying French Literature, Scottish history, and the works of Darwin and Spencer instead. He also began to openly rebel against social standards by growing his hair to his shoulders and wearing a velvet smoking jacket everywhere.

When Stevenson finally confided to his father that he did not want to become an engineer, and instead wished to pursue writing, his father was understandably upset. They eventually settled on a compromise in which Louis would study law so that, if his literary ambitions failed, he would have a respectable profession to fall back on.

During the university's summer vacations Louis would go to France to be in the company of other young artists, both writers and painters. There he worked on essays, and upon returning to Edinburgh spent much of his time writing book reviews and articles while also experimenting with short stories. His first published work was an essay called Roads, and his first published volumes were works of travel writing.

In 1875, Louis left university after having "passed advocate" and earning a law degree. Never planning to actually practice law, however, he continued to write - always keeping two books in his pocket, "one to read, one to write in."
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On Falling in Love

Seeking an adventure to write about, Stevenson embarked on a canoe trip from Antwerp to northern France with his friend Walter Simpson. This would later become is first book, An Inland Voyage. Immediately afterwards, in September 1876, he found his way to the small town of Grez-sur-Loing, outside of Paris, to meet up with his cousin Robert "Bob" Alan Mowbray Stevenson and their artistic circle of friends.

Unexpectedly, it was here that Louis met a married American woman, Fanny Osbourne, and her two children, Belle and Lloyd. At the time, Louis was twenty-five and Fanny thirty-six, yet he fell in love with this intelligent and independent American "New Woman" who was separated from her philandering husband. For two years, their relationship bloomed until Fanny was forced to choose between returning to California, and a husband who could support her family, or stay with an aspiring author with little to his name. She chose California and Louis took his broken heart to the south of France for a walking tour which later became his second book Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.

A year later word came from Fanny that inspired the ill Stevenson to throw caution to the wind and travel to America. A steamer from Glasgow brought him to New York, while the railroad took him across the continent to San Francisco. By December 1879 Fanny was divorced, and on 19 May 1880 she and Louis were married. The following nine weeks were spent in the Napa Valley, where Louis would pen his book The Silverado Squatters.
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Fame & Adventure

In August 1880, the Stevensons returned to England. He and his wife wintered in the South of France and lived in England from 1880-1887, a period of time that was marked by both Louis' poor health and great literary achievements. His first novel, Treasure Island, was published in 1883, followed by A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Kidnapped (1886). Stevenson's work was hugely popular and he received great critical acclaim.

Upon his father's death in 1887, Stevenson chose to leave England and sailed for America, where he stayed for a year. In June 1888, accompanied by his wife, stepson, and mother, he set sail for the South Seas. Stevenson grew so enchanted by the life of the South Seas that in January 1890 he bought an estate in Apia, Samoa, convinced that he could never again endure the harsh winters of his native Scotland or England.

Apia was a perfect location because the climate was tropical but not wild, the people were friendly and hard-working, and there was good postal service in the country. Stevenson lived at his 300-acre estate, Vailima, in the hills of Apia until his death in 1894. While at Vailima, Stevenson wrote a great deal, completing two of his finest novellas, The Beach of Falesa and The Ebb Tide; two novels, The Wrecker and Catriona; and the short stories The Bottle Imp and The Isle of Voices.

On 3 December 1894, Louis seemed in excellent spirits, and was speaking with his wife in the evening when he felt a violent pain in his head and lost consciousness. Stevenson had suffered a brain hemorrhage and died soon afterwards at the age of forty-four.
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The Life - Robert Louis Stevenson Museum

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Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850 - 1894) A brief summary of his life (or see our recommended Biographies). An Imaginative Childhood (1850 - 1867) ↓ Becoming a Writer (1867 - 1876) ↓ On Falling in Love (1876 - 1880) ↓ Fame & Adventure (1880 - 1894) ↓ An Imaginative Childhood Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was ...

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Poet, author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, alumnus.

Photograph from the National Galleries of Scotland

Background

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh on 13 November 1850.

His father, along with his grandfather Robert and uncles, Alan and David, were leading lighthouse designers and engineers.

Stevenson intended to follow in his father's footsteps in the family business. However, after enrolling at the University of Edinburgh at the age of 17, it was clear that he had little interest in the family profession or his studies in engineering. His father, although disappointed, accepted his decision to read law instead.

Despite being called to the bar in 1875, Stevenson chose not to practise, instead deciding to focus his efforts on his writing, which he had greatly developed during his time at the University.

His thirst for adventure led him to travel all around the world and fed into the stories that he would eventually write.

Career

Constantly plagued by ill-health, Stevenson spent the years between 1880 and 1887 travelling with his family in search of a place that would be suitable for his condition. In spite of his illness, these years were perhaps his most fruitful as he completed several of his most popular works of fiction including 'Treasure Island', 'Kidnapped', 'Strange Case of Dy Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and 'The Black Arrow'.

Today, Stevenson's works are read widely both in the world of academia and beyond, showing the nature of his literary reputation and influence.

The plaque

Stevenson's plaque is on the facade of 7 George Square.

In honour of Robert Louis Stevenson

1850-1894

Poet, author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, alumnus of the University

Related links

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Poet, author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, alumnus. Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh on 13 November 1850. His father, along with his grandfather Robert and uncles, Alan and David, were leading lighthouse designers and engineers. Stevenson intended to follow in his father's footsteps in the family business.

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Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by Project Gutenberg.

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Abstract

R. L. Stevenson's novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a prominent example of Victorian fiction. The names Jekyll and Hyde have become synonymous with multiple personality disorder. This article seeks to examine the novel from the view point of dualism as a system of philosophy and as a religious framework and also from the view point of Freud's structural theory of the mind.

Keywords: Dualism, literature, psychiatry

DUALISM

Dualism derives from the Latin word duo, meaning two. Simply put, dualism can be understood as a thought that facts about the world in general or of a particular class cannot be explained except by supposing ultimately the existence of two different, often opposite, and irreducible principles. Dualism is most often discussed in context of the systems of religion and philosophy.[ 1]

The purpose of this paper is to examine Robert Stevenson's famous novel, " The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"[ 2] from the view point of the above mentioned systems and to discuss the novel from a psychological perspective.

THE AUTHOR AND THE NOVEL

Robert Balfour Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, short story writer, and poet. Born in 1850, he was a qualified advocate but earned his living as a writer. He was chronically afflicted with tuberculosis, and dabbled with various psychotropic drugs such as alcohol, cannabis, and opium. He is well known for his dark and sinister tales like Markheim, Thrawn Janet, and racy adventure novels such as Treasure Island and Kidnapped. Successful and famous, he died at a young age in 1894. Interestingly enough, Stevenson later claimed that the plot of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was revealed to him in a dream.[ 3]

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde deals with a Dr. Henry Jekyll who is widely respected, successful, and possesses a brilliant intellect but is only too aware of the duplicity of the life that he leads, and of the evil that resides within him. Dr. Jekyll covertly provides utterance to the evil in his soul by various unspeakable acts, but is afraid of doing so openly because of the fear of social criticism. In the course of his experiments, he succeeds in producing a concoction that enables him to free this evil in him from the control of his good self, thus giving rise to Edward Hyde. Edward Hyde is pure evil and amoral. Not only is his psyche different from Dr. Jekyll but also his body is grotesque and deformed. Thus, Dr. Jekyll thinks that he can receive the pleasure that both parts of his being crave without each being encumbered by the demands of the other. However, Mr. Hyde evokes feelings of dread and abhorrence in Dr. Jekyll's friends who beseech him to give up his "friendship" with this Edward Hyde. Edward Hyde gradually becomes ever more powerful than his 'good' counterpart and ultimately leads Dr. Jekyll to his doom. "Jekyll and Hyde" as an eponymous term has become a synonym for multiple personality in scientific[ 4] and lay literature[ 5] and the novel has also been considered a case demonstration of substance dependence.[ 6]

DUALISM, RELIGION, AND THE NOVEL

A religion that is dualistic admits not only that the universe comprises good and evil, or light and darkness, but also that though these are eternally opposed they are coeternal, coexistent, and equipotent.[ 7] This is an important distinction from nondualistic, monistic religions where evil comes about as an accident during creation of the Universe or as a result of powerful beings that can be good or bad as per what serves them or injures them and not because they are evil for the sake of being evil. Here, the good and the evil are often derived from the same source or from one another, much like the Pandavas and Kauravas in the Mahabharata. Zoroastrianism is often cited as an example of a dualistic religion where the concentration of all that is good is around Ahura Mazda, and all that is evil around Ahra Mainyu. These two forces are at constant war and only at the end will good finally vanquish evil. Interestingly, Christianity, the religion Stevenson was born into, rejects dualism and preaches a monistic origin to the universe from one, infinite, and self-existing spiritual being who freely created everything. However, the dualism of the human soul and the body which it animates was made clearer and is emphasized by the church. In the same vein, Christianity holds that evil is the necessary limitation of finite created beings and is a consequence of creation of beings possessed by free will. As an imperfection inherent in the manufacturing process of individuals, evil is tolerated by God.[ 1]

In the novel, Stevenson creates a hero in Dr. Jekyll, who aware of the evil in his own being, and sick of the duplicity in his life, succeeds by way of his experiments on himself in freeing the pure evil part of his being as Mr. Hyde, so that each can indulge in a life unfettered by the demands of the other. As Dr. Jekyll says, "With every day and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and intellectual, I thus drew steadily to that truth by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two." He further adds,"... that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man;... if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both". Mr. Edward Hyde he describes as, "a second form and countenance substituted, none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp, of lower elements in my soul" and that, "Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil".[ 2] Thus, Stevenson creates in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two equipotent, coexistent, and eternally opposed components that make up a "normal" individual. Here, good and evil are not related but are two independent entities, individuals even, different in mental and physical attributes and constantly at war with each other. Evil now does not require the existence of good to justify itself but it exists simply as itself, depicted as being the more powerful, the more enjoyable of the two, and in the end ultimately it is the one that leads to Dr. Jekyll's downfall and death. This is because Dr. Jekyll in the last phases of his lucidity recognizes the danger that Mr. Hyde poses to society and altruistically decides to do away with himself. Stevenson seems to discard Christian notions of monism and embrace dualism as described above.

The novel needs to be looked at in the context of its setting of Victorian London. Stevenson seems to make a comment not only about the dualism present in every individual but also in society as a whole, where the aristocracy that superficially was genteel and refined, had dark secrets to hide behind the high walls of the mansions in which they lived. Most of the action takes place in the night time and much of it in the poorer districts of London, considered the abode of evil-doers. Most significantly, Mr. Hyde enters and leaves Dr. Jekyll's house through the back door which seems a metaphor for the evil that lies behind the façade of civilization and refinement.

DUALISM, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE NOVEL

Dualism as a philosophy signifies the view that the universe contains two radically different kinds of being or substance-matter and spirit, body, and mind.[ 7] The ancient Greeks distinguished profoundly the soul and the body as the dictum states: "The body is a tomb." Evil therefore was a result of an infinite soul trapped in a finite body. Plato for instance was strongly dualistic in that he expressed the view that the soul exists independently of the body. The rational soul is a spiritual substance distinct from the body within which it dwells, much like the chariot and a charioteer.[ 8] Dualism served a great purpose in the European Renaissance when Descartes described the mind exclusively as a substance that thinks and matter exclusively as an extended substance. This dualism enabled a wholly mathematical science of physics to come about where every fact in the material world was to be explained on basis of measurements. In this scheme, the psyche is immeasurable and thus not open to either understanding or intervention.[ 1]

In the novel, Stevenson creates a hero who by way of a concoction (that he compares with alcohol in course of the novel) intervenes in his "normal" mental processes and unleashes Mr. Hyde. This new persona not only is pure evil but also has a countenance that suggests "Satan's signature" and a body that is "something troglodytic".[ 2] Here, not only the psyche is shown as a process that can be mediated by external tangible methods (the mysterious concoction) but also that a change in the psyche is associated with a change in the body or the soma. Stevenson seems to eschew traditional mind-body dualism to a remarkably modern monistic way of looking at the mind-body functioning.

ECHOES OF "THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE" IN FREUDIAN PSYCHODYNAMIC CONCEPTS

The issues raised in the novel find resonance with the Freudian concepts of instincts, life and death instincts, and the structural theory of the mind propounded by Freud.

Freud defined instincts variously but most cogently as "a concept that is on the frontier between the mental and somatic, as the psychical representative of the stimuli originating from and reaching the mind, as a measure of the demands made upon the mind for work in the consequence with its connections with the body." Freud developed the theory of instincts in relation to the concept of libido and the consequent foundation of the psychosexual phases of development. However, aggression as a component of the libidinal drives became increasingly important and could not be ignored. It was therefore elevated to the status of a separate instinct. It was further realized that humans were neither exclusively nor essentially good. Freud introduced his final theory of life and death instincts in 1920. Freud postulated that the death instinct is a dominant tendency of all organisms and their cells to return to a state of inanimateness. The death instinct represented the aggressive instincts and Freud later separated the libidinal and aggressive instincts from the ego and located them in a vital stratum of the mind which is independent of the ego. This line of thought led to the further differentiation of the psyche as per the "Structural Theory" into the id, ego, and superego.[ 9]

The characters in the novel manifest characteristics of the structural theory of the mind. Mr. Hyde would seem easily recognizable as the id, seeking instant gratification, having an aggressive instinct, and having no moral or social mores that need be followed. He takes pleasure in violence and similar to the death instinct ultimately leads to his own destruction. Dr. Jekyll is then the ego; he is conscious and rational, and is dominated by social principles. He has a difficult time juggling between the demands of the id, represented by Mr. Hyde, and the superego as represented by the proclaimed and implicit morals of Victorian society which prided itself on refinement and goodness, and is shocked by the seeming nonchalance with which Edward Hyde indulges in his debaucheries. In the novel, Dr. Jekyll gives in to his impulses and after initial pleasure soon cannot control their power. Rather than let Mr. Hyde go free and realizing that Hyde needs Jekyll to exist, he decides to end his own life.

Further, by labeling Mr. Hyde as a "troglodyte", Stevenson seems to make a comment on the theories of evolution and that he considered Hyde that is savage, uncivilized, and given to passion: poorly evolved. Edward Hyde represents a regression to an earlier, less civilized, and more violent phase of human development.

A WORK AHEAD OF ITS TIME

The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can be seen at various levels. As a story, it talks about the concept of good and evil that exists in all of us. At another level, it is a critique on the hypocrisy and double standards of the society. It is also an interesting study into the mind of the author and into the theories of dualism. Finally, it can be seen as a remarkable study into human psychology that presaged the structural personality theories as detailed by Freud.

REFERENCES

1. Robinson H. Dualism. In: Stich S, Warfield T, editors. The Blackwell guide to philosophy of mind. Oxford: Blackwell; 2003. pp. 85-101.

2. Stevenson RL. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) New York: Bantam Books; 1981.

3. Elwin M. The strange case of Robert Louis Stevenson. London: Macdonald; 1950. p. 79.

4. Ezekowitz RA. Genetic heterogeneity of mannose-binding proteins: The Jekyll and Hyde of innate immunity? Am J Hum Genet. 1998;62:6-9. [ PMC free article]

5. Rieber RW. The duality of the brain and the multiplicity of minds: Can you have it both ways?

6. Altschuler EL. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: A primer on substance dependence. Am J Psychiatry. 2000;157:484.

7. Hart WD. Dualism. In: Guttenplan S, editor. A companion to the philosophy of mind. Oxford: Blackwell; 1996. pp. 265-7.

8. Duke EA, Hicken WF, Nicoll WS, Robinson DB, Strachan JC, editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1995. Plato; pp. 110-2.

9. Freud S. Standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth Press; pp. 1953-66.

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A study in dualism: The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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R. L. Stevenson's novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a prominent example of Victorian fiction. The names Jekyll and Hyde have become synonymous with multiple personality disorder. This article seeks to examine the novel from the view ...

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What Makes Mr. Hyde So Scary?: Disability as a Result of Evil and Cause of Fear | Schalk | Disability Studies Quarterly

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What Makes Mr. Hyde So Scary?: Disability as a Result of Evil and Cause of Fear

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Explore and read 31501 pages of Illustrated Police News on the British Newspaper Archive, 70 years of history, local and international news stories, different and free sample issues to view everyday

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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Title: Frankenstein
or, The Modern Prometheus

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN ***

or, the Modern Prometheus

by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

Letter 1

To Mrs. Saville, England.

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17-.

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.

I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There-for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators-there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.

These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose-a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good Uncle Thomas' library. My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father's dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.

These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.

Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise. I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I must own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me the second dignity in the vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness, so valuable did he consider my services.

And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.

This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia. They fly quickly over the snow in their sledges; the motion is pleasant, and, in my opinion, far more agreeable than that of an English stagecoach. The cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in furs-a dress which I have already adopted, for there is a great difference between walking the deck and remaining seated motionless for hours, when no exercise prevents the blood from actually freezing in your veins. I have no ambition to lose my life on the post-road between St. Petersburgh and Archangel.

I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three weeks; and my intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be done by paying the insurance for the owner, and to engage as many sailors as I think necessary among those who are accustomed to the whale-fishing. I do not intend to sail until the month of June; and when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how can I answer this question? If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never.

Farewell, my dear, excellent Margaret. Heaven shower down blessings on you, and save me, that I may again and again testify my gratitude for all your love and kindness.

Your affectionate brother,
R. Walton

Letter 2

To Mrs. Saville, England.

Archangel, 28th March, 17-.

How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.

But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties. But it is a still greater evil to me that I am self-educated: for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas' books of voyages. At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own country; but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power to derive its most important benefits from such a conviction that I perceived the necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages than that of my native country. Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more and that my daydreams are more extended and magnificent, but they want (as the painters call it) keeping; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.

Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no friend on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen. Yet some feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even in these rugged bosoms. My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful courage and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory, or rather, to word my phrase more characteristically, of advancement in his profession. He is an Englishman, and in the midst of national and professional prejudices, unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest endowments of humanity. I first became acquainted with him on board a whale vessel; finding that he was unemployed in this city, I easily engaged him to assist in my enterprise.

The master is a person of an excellent disposition and is remarkable in the ship for his gentleness and the mildness of his discipline. This circumstance, added to his well-known integrity and dauntless courage, made me very desirous to engage him. A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship: I have never believed it to be necessary, and when I heard of a mariner equally noted for his kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience paid to him by his crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure his services. I heard of him first in rather a romantic manner, from a lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his story. Some years ago he loved a young Russian lady of moderate fortune, and having amassed a considerable sum in prize-money, the father of the girl consented to the match. He saw his mistress once before the destined ceremony; but she was bathed in tears, and throwing herself at his feet, entreated him to spare her, confessing at the same time that she loved another, but that he was poor, and that her father would never consent to the union. My generous friend reassured the suppliant, and on being informed of the name of her lover, instantly abandoned his pursuit. He had already bought a farm with his money, on which he had designed to pass the remainder of his life; but he bestowed the whole on his rival, together with the remains of his prize-money to purchase stock, and then himself solicited the young woman's father to consent to her marriage with her lover. But the old man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour to my friend, who, when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country, nor returned until he heard that his former mistress was married according to her inclinations. "What a noble fellow!" you will exclaim. He is so; but then he is wholly uneducated: he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his conduct the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise he would command.

Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am wavering in my resolutions. Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation. The winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well, and it is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps I may sail sooner than I expected. I shall do nothing rashly: you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care.

I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my undertaking. It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. I am going to unexplored regions, to "the land of mist and snow," but I shall kill no albatross; therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and woeful as the "Ancient Mariner." You will smile at my allusion, but I will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets. There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious-painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour-but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.

But to return to dearer considerations. Shall I meet you again, after having traversed immense seas, and returned by the most southern cape of Africa or America? I dare not expect such success, yet I cannot bear to look on the reverse of the picture. Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits. I love you very tenderly. Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again.

Your affectionate brother,
Robert Walton

Letter 3

To Mrs. Saville, England.

July 7th, 17-.

My dear Sister,

I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe-and well advanced on my voyage. This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not see my native land, perhaps, for many years. I am, however, in good spirits: my men are bold and apparently firm of purpose, nor do the floating sheets of ice that continually pass us, indicating the dangers of the region towards which we are advancing, appear to dismay them. We have already reached a very high latitude; but it is the height of summer, and although not so warm as in England, the southern gales, which blow us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire to attain, breathe a degree of renovating warmth which I had not expected.

No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure in a letter. One or two stiff gales and the springing of a leak are accidents which experienced navigators scarcely remember to record, and I shall be well content if nothing worse happen to us during our voyage.

Adieu, my dear Margaret. Be assured that for my own sake, as well as yours, I will not rashly encounter danger. I will be cool, persevering, and prudent.

But success shall crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?

My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. But I must finish. Heaven bless my beloved sister!

R.W.

Letter 4

To Mrs. Saville, England.

August 5th, 17-.

So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it, although it is very probable that you will see me before these papers can come into your possession.

Last Monday (July 31st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather.

About two o'clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveller with our telescopes until he was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice.

This appearance excited our unqualified wonder. We were, as we believed, many hundred miles from any land; but this apparition seemed to denote that it was not, in reality, so distant as we had supposed. Shut in, however, by ice, it was impossible to follow his track, which we had observed with the greatest attention.

About two hours after this occurrence we heard the ground sea, and before night the ice broke and freed our ship. We, however, lay to until the morning, fearing to encounter in the dark those large loose masses which float about after the breaking up of the ice. I profited of this time to rest for a few hours.

In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently talking to someone in the sea. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had drifted towards us in the night on a large fragment of ice. Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human being within it whom the sailors were persuading to enter the vessel. He was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but a European. When I appeared on deck the master said, "Here is our captain, and he will not allow you to perish on the open sea."

On perceiving me, the stranger addressed me in English, although with a foreign accent. "Before I come on board your vessel," said he, "will you have the kindness to inform me whither you are bound?"

You may conceive my astonishment on hearing such a question addressed to me from a man on the brink of destruction and to whom I should have supposed that my vessel would have been a resource which he would not have exchanged for the most precious wealth the earth can afford. I replied, however, that we were on a voyage of discovery towards the northern pole.

Upon hearing this he appeared satisfied and consented to come on board. Good God! Margaret, if you had seen the man who thus capitulated for his safety, your surprise would have been boundless. His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never saw a man in so wretched a condition. We attempted to carry him into the cabin, but as soon as he had quitted the fresh air he fainted. We accordingly brought him back to the deck and restored him to animation by rubbing him with brandy and forcing him to swallow a small quantity. As soon as he showed signs of life we wrapped him up in blankets and placed him near the chimney of the kitchen stove. By slow degrees he recovered and ate a little soup, which restored him wonderfully.

Two days passed in this manner before he was able to speak, and I often feared that his sufferings had deprived him of understanding. When he had in some measure recovered, I removed him to my own cabin and attended on him as much as my duty would permit. I never saw a more interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness, but there are moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled. But he is generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes he gnashes his teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him.

When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions; but I would not allow him to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body and mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. Once, however, the lieutenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice in so strange a vehicle.

His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom, and he replied, "To seek one who fled from me."

"And did the man whom you pursued travel in the same fashion?"

"Yes."

"Then I fancy we have seen him, for the day before we picked you up we saw some dogs drawing a sledge, with a man in it, across the ice."

This aroused the stranger's attention, and he asked a multitude of questions concerning the route which the dæmon, as he called him, had pursued. Soon after, when he was alone with me, he said, "I have, doubtless, excited your curiosity, as well as that of these good people; but you are too considerate to make inquiries."

"Certainly; it would indeed be very impertinent and inhuman in me to trouble you with any inquisitiveness of mine."

"And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you have benevolently restored me to life."

Soon after this he inquired if I thought that the breaking up of the ice had destroyed the other sledge. I replied that I could not answer with any degree of certainty, for the ice had not broken until near midnight, and the traveller might have arrived at a place of safety before that time; but of this I could not judge.

From this time a new spirit of life animated the decaying frame of the stranger. He manifested the greatest eagerness to be upon deck to watch for the sledge which had before appeared; but I have persuaded him to remain in the cabin, for he is far too weak to sustain the rawness of the atmosphere. I have promised that someone should watch for him and give him instant notice if any new object should appear in sight.

Such is my journal of what relates to this strange occurrence up to the present day. The stranger has gradually improved in health but is very silent and appears uneasy when anyone except myself enters his cabin. Yet his manners are so conciliating and gentle that the sailors are all interested in him, although they have had very little communication with him. For my own part, I begin to love him as a brother, and his constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy and compassion. He must have been a noble creature in his better days, being even now in wreck so attractive and amiable.

I said in one of my letters, my dear Margaret, that I should find no friend on the wide ocean; yet I have found a man who, before his spirit had been broken by misery, I should have been happy to have possessed as the brother of my heart.

I shall continue my journal concerning the stranger at intervals, should I have any fresh incidents to record.

August 13th, 17-.

My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites at once my admiration and my pity to an astonishing degree. How can I see so noble a creature destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant grief? He is so gentle, yet so wise; his mind is so cultivated, and when he speaks, although his words are culled with the choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence.

He is now much recovered from his illness and is continually on the deck, apparently watching for the sledge that preceded his own. Yet, although unhappy, he is not so utterly occupied by his own misery but that he interests himself deeply in the projects of others. He has frequently conversed with me on mine, which I have communicated to him without disguise. He entered attentively into all my arguments in favour of my eventual success and into every minute detail of the measures I had taken to secure it. I was easily led by the sympathy which he evinced to use the language of my heart, to give utterance to the burning ardour of my soul and to say, with all the fervour that warmed me, how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race. As I spoke, a dark gloom spread over my listener's countenance. At first I perceived that he tried to suppress his emotion; he placed his hands before his eyes, and my voice quivered and failed me as I beheld tears trickle fast from between his fingers; a groan burst from his heaving breast. I paused; at length he spoke, in broken accents: "Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!"

Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity; but the paroxysm of grief that had seized the stranger overcame his weakened powers, and many hours of repose and tranquil conversation were necessary to restore his composure.

Having conquered the violence of his feelings, he appeared to despise himself for being the slave of passion; and quelling the dark tyranny of despair, he led me again to converse concerning myself personally. He asked me the history of my earlier years. The tale was quickly told, but it awakened various trains of reflection. I spoke of my desire of finding a friend, of my thirst for a more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than had ever fallen to my lot, and expressed my conviction that a man could boast of little happiness who did not enjoy this blessing.

"I agree with you," replied the stranger; "we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves-such a friend ought to be-do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I-I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew."

As he said this his countenance became expressive of a calm, settled grief that touched me to the heart. But he was silent and presently retired to his cabin.

Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery and be overwhelmed by disappointments, yet when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.

Will you smile at the enthusiasm I express concerning this divine wanderer? You would not if you saw him. You have been tutored and refined by books and retirement from the world, and you are therefore somewhat fastidious; but this only renders you the more fit to appreciate the extraordinary merits of this wonderful man. Sometimes I have endeavoured to discover what quality it is which he possesses that elevates him so immeasurably above any other person I ever knew. I believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but never-failing power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things, unequalled for clearness and precision; add to this a facility of expression and a voice whose varied intonations are soul-subduing music.

August 19th, 17-.

Yesterday the stranger said to me, "You may easily perceive, Captain Walton, that I have suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes. I had determined at one time that the memory of these evils should die with me, but you have won me to alter my determination. You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I am, I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one that may direct you if you succeed in your undertaking and console you in case of failure. Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually deemed marvellous. Were we among the tamer scenes of nature I might fear to encounter your unbelief, perhaps your ridicule; but many things will appear possible in these wild and mysterious regions which would provoke the laughter of those unacquainted with the ever-varied powers of nature; nor can I doubt but that my tale conveys in its series internal evidence of the truth of the events of which it is composed."

You may easily imagine that I was much gratified by the offered communication, yet I could not endure that he should renew his grief by a recital of his misfortunes. I felt the greatest eagerness to hear the promised narrative, partly from curiosity and partly from a strong desire to ameliorate his fate if it were in my power. I expressed these feelings in my answer.

"I thank you," he replied, "for your sympathy, but it is useless; my fate is nearly fulfilled. I wait but for one event, and then I shall repose in peace. I understand your feeling," continued he, perceiving that I wished to interrupt him; "but you are mistaken, my friend, if thus you will allow me to name you; nothing can alter my destiny; listen to my history, and you will perceive how irrevocably it is determined."

He then told me that he would commence his narrative the next day when I should be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks. I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has related during the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least make notes. This manuscript will doubtless afford you the greatest pleasure; but to me, who know him, and who hear it from his own lips-with what interest and sympathy shall I read it in some future day! Even now, as I commence my task, his full-toned voice swells in my ears; his lustrous eyes dwell on me with all their melancholy sweetness; I see his thin hand raised in animation, while the lineaments of his face are irradiated by the soul within. Strange and harrowing must be his story, frightful the storm which embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked it-thus!

Chapter 1

I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband and the father of a family.

As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain from relating them. One of his most intimate friends was a merchant who, from a flourishing state, fell, through numerous mischances, into poverty. This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Having paid his debts, therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his daughter to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. My father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by his retreat in these unfortunate circumstances. He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them. He lost no time in endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him to begin the world again through his credit and assistance.

Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself, and it was ten months before my father discovered his abode. Overjoyed at this discovery, he hastened to the house, which was situated in a mean street near the Reuss. But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes, but it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance for some months, and in the meantime he hoped to procure some respectable employment in a merchant's house. The interval was, consequently, spent in inaction; his grief only became more deep and rankling when he had leisure for reflection, and at length it took so fast hold of his mind that at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion.

His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but she saw with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that there was no other prospect of support. But Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support her in her adversity. She procured plain work; she plaited straw and by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to support life.

Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew worse; her time was more entirely occupied in attending him; her means of subsistence decreased; and in the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving her an orphan and a beggar. This last blow overcame her, and she knelt by Beaufort's coffin weeping bitterly, when my father entered the chamber. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care; and after the interment of his friend he conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a relation. Two years after this event Caroline became his wife.

There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection. There was a sense of justice in my father's upright mind which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes and her convenience. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, as a restorative for her weakened frame.

From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother's tender caresses and my father's smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my first recollections. I was their plaything and their idol, and something better-their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me.

For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a passion-remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been relieved-for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest. She appeared of a different stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. Her hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features.

The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She was not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a German and had died on giving her birth. The infant had been placed with these good people to nurse: they were better off then. They had not been long married, and their eldest child was but just born. The father of their charge was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory of Italy-one among the schiavi ognor frementi, who exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his country. He became the victim of its weakness. Whether he had died or still lingered in the dungeons of Austria was not known. His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar. She continued with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles.

When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub-a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his permission my mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her. They were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them, but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want when Providence afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents' house-my more than sister-the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures.

Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, "I have a pretty present for my Victor-tomorrow he shall have it." And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine-mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me-my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only.

Chapter 2

We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home -the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers-she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.

On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a campagne on Belrive, the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a league from the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them. Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels.

No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love.

My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.

Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral relations of things. The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men were his theme; and his hope and his dream was to become one among those whose names are recorded in story as the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract; I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And Clerval-could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval? Yet he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity, so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition.

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery, for when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled my destiny I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.

Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page of my book and said, "Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash."

If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity.

When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy's apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.

The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, anatomise, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined.

But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise in the eighteenth century; but while I followed the routine of education in the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree, self-taught with regard to my favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!

Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories and floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident again changed the current of my ideas.

When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.

Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. When I look back, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life-the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars and ready to envelop me. Her victory was announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul which followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting studies. It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with their prosecution, happiness with their disregard.

It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.

Chapter 5

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in vain; I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life.

Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.

I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete!

Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned and discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock, which indicated the sixth hour. The porter opened the gates of the court, which had that night been my asylum, and I issued into the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on, although drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky.

I continued walking in this manner for some time, endeavouring by bodily exercise to ease the load that weighed upon my mind. I traversed the streets without any clear conception of where I was or what I was doing. My heart palpitated in the sickness of fear, and I hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about me:

Like one who, on a lonely road,
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And, having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

[Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner."]

Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various diligences and carriages usually stopped. Here I paused, I knew not why; but I remained some minutes with my eyes fixed on a coach that was coming towards me from the other end of the street. As it drew nearer I observed that it was the Swiss diligence; it stopped just where I was standing, and on the door being opened, I perceived Henry Clerval, who, on seeing me, instantly sprung out. "My dear Frankenstein," exclaimed he, "how glad I am to see you! How fortunate that you should be here at the very moment of my alighting!"

Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval; his presence brought back to my thoughts my father, Elizabeth, and all those scenes of home so dear to my recollection. I grasped his hand, and in a moment forgot my horror and misfortune; I felt suddenly, and for the first time during many months, calm and serene joy. I welcomed my friend, therefore, in the most cordial manner, and we walked towards my college. Clerval continued talking for some time about our mutual friends and his own good fortune in being permitted to come to Ingolstadt. "You may easily believe," said he, "how great was the difficulty to persuade my father that all necessary knowledge was not comprised in the noble art of book-keeping; and, indeed, I believe I left him incredulous to the last, for his constant answer to my unwearied entreaties was the same as that of the Dutch schoolmaster in The Vicar of Wakefield: 'I have ten thousand florins a year without Greek, I eat heartily without Greek.' But his affection for me at length overcame his dislike of learning, and he has permitted me to undertake a voyage of discovery to the land of knowledge."

"It gives me the greatest delight to see you; but tell me how you left my father, brothers, and Elizabeth."

"Very well, and very happy, only a little uneasy that they hear from you so seldom. By the by, I mean to lecture you a little upon their account myself. But, my dear Frankenstein," continued he, stopping short and gazing full in my face, "I did not before remark how very ill you appear; so thin and pale; you look as if you had been watching for several nights."

"You have guessed right; I have lately been so deeply engaged in one occupation that I have not allowed myself sufficient rest, as you see; but I hope, I sincerely hope, that all these employments are now at an end and that I am at length free."

I trembled excessively; I could not endure to think of, and far less to allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night. I walked with a quick pace, and we soon arrived at my college. I then reflected, and the thought made me shiver, that the creature whom I had left in my apartment might still be there, alive and walking about. I dreaded to behold this monster, but I feared still more that Henry should see him. Entreating him, therefore, to remain a few minutes at the bottom of the stairs, I darted up towards my own room. My hand was already on the lock of the door before I recollected myself. I then paused, and a cold shivering came over me. I threw the door forcibly open, as children are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to stand in waiting for them on the other side; but nothing appeared. I stepped fearfully in: the apartment was empty, and my bedroom was also freed from its hideous guest. I could hardly believe that so great a good fortune could have befallen me, but when I became assured that my enemy had indeed fled, I clapped my hands for joy and ran down to Clerval.

We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast; but I was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. I was unable to remain for a single instant in the same place; I jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud. Clerval at first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival, but when he observed me more attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes for which he could not account, and my loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter frightened and astonished him.

"My dear Victor," cried he, "what, for God's sake, is the matter? Do not laugh in that manner. How ill you are! What is the cause of all this?"

"Do not ask me," cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room; " he can tell. Oh, save me! Save me!" I imagined that the monster seized me; I struggled furiously and fell down in a fit.

Poor Clerval! What must have been his feelings? A meeting, which he anticipated with such joy, so strangely turned to bitterness. But I was not the witness of his grief, for I was lifeless and did not recover my senses for a long, long time.

This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me for several months. During all that time Henry was my only nurse. I afterwards learned that, knowing my father's advanced age and unfitness for so long a journey, and how wretched my sickness would make Elizabeth, he spared them this grief by concealing the extent of my disorder. He knew that I could not have a more kind and attentive nurse than himself; and, firm in the hope he felt of my recovery, he did not doubt that, instead of doing harm, he performed the kindest action that he could towards them.

But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded and unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life. The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him. Doubtless my words surprised Henry; he at first believed them to be the wanderings of my disturbed imagination, but the pertinacity with which I continually recurred to the same subject persuaded him that my disorder indeed owed its origin to some uncommon and terrible event.

By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses that alarmed and grieved my friend, I recovered. I remember the first time I became capable of observing outward objects with any kind of pleasure, I perceived that the fallen leaves had disappeared and that the young buds were shooting forth from the trees that shaded my window. It was a divine spring, and the season contributed greatly to my convalescence. I felt also sentiments of joy and affection revive in my bosom; my gloom disappeared, and in a short time I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion.

"Dearest Clerval," exclaimed I, "how kind, how very good you are to me. This whole winter, instead of being spent in study, as you promised yourself, has been consumed in my sick room. How shall I ever repay you? I feel the greatest remorse for the disappointment of which I have been the occasion, but you will forgive me."

"You will repay me entirely if you do not discompose yourself, but get well as fast as you can; and since you appear in such good spirits, I may speak to you on one subject, may I not?"

I trembled. One subject! What could it be? Could he allude to an object on whom I dared not even think?

"Compose yourself," said Clerval, who observed my change of colour, "I will not mention it if it agitates you; but your father and cousin would be very happy if they received a letter from you in your own handwriting. They hardly know how ill you have been and are uneasy at your long silence."

"Is that all, my dear Henry? How could you suppose that my first thought would not fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love and who are so deserving of my love?"

"If this is your present temper, my friend, you will perhaps be glad to see a letter that has been lying here some days for you; it is from your cousin, I believe."

Chapter 6

Clerval then put the following letter into my hands. It was from my own Elizabeth:

"My dearest Cousin,

"You have been ill, very ill, and even the constant letters of dear kind Henry are not sufficient to reassure me on your account. You are forbidden to write-to hold a pen; yet one word from you, dear Victor, is necessary to calm our apprehensions. For a long time I have thought that each post would bring this line, and my persuasions have restrained my uncle from undertaking a journey to Ingolstadt. I have prevented his encountering the inconveniences and perhaps dangers of so long a journey, yet how often have I regretted not being able to perform it myself! I figure to myself that the task of attending on your sickbed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse, who could never guess your wishes nor minister to them with the care and affection of your poor cousin. Yet that is over now: Clerval writes that indeed you are getting better. I eagerly hope that you will confirm this intelligence soon in your own handwriting.

"Get well-and return to us. You will find a happy, cheerful home and friends who love you dearly. Your father's health is vigorous, and he asks but to see you, but to be assured that you are well; and not a care will ever cloud his benevolent countenance. How pleased you would be to remark the improvement of our Ernest! He is now sixteen and full of activity and spirit. He is desirous to be a true Swiss and to enter into foreign service, but we cannot part with him, at least until his elder brother returns to us. My uncle is not pleased with the idea of a military career in a distant country, but Ernest never had your powers of application. He looks upon study as an odious fetter; his time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake. I fear that he will become an idler unless we yield the point and permit him to enter on the profession which he has selected.

"Little alteration, except the growth of our dear children, has taken place since you left us. The blue lake and snow-clad mountains-they never change; and I think our placid home and our contented hearts are regulated by the same immutable laws. My trifling occupations take up my time and amuse me, and I am rewarded for any exertions by seeing none but happy, kind faces around me. Since you left us, but one change has taken place in our little household. Do you remember on what occasion Justine Moritz entered our family? Probably you do not; I will relate her history, therefore in a few words. Madame Moritz, her mother, was a widow with four children, of whom Justine was the third. This girl had always been the favourite of her father, but through a strange perversity, her mother could not endure her, and after the death of M. Moritz, treated her very ill. My aunt observed this, and when Justine was twelve years of age, prevailed on her mother to allow her to live at our house. The republican institutions of our country have produced simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it. Hence there is less distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants; and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and moral. A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing as a servant in France and England. Justine, thus received in our family, learned the duties of a servant, a condition which, in our fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.

"Justine, you may remember, was a great favourite of yours; and I recollect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humour, one glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica-she looked so frank-hearted and happy. My aunt conceived a great attachment for her, by which she was induced to give her an education superior to that which she had at first intended. This benefit was fully repaid; Justine was the most grateful little creature in the world: I do not mean that she made any professions I never heard one pass her lips, but you could see by her eyes that she almost adored her protectress. Although her disposition was gay and in many respects inconsiderate, yet she paid the greatest attention to every gesture of my aunt. She thought her the model of all excellence and endeavoured to imitate her phraseology and manners, so that even now she often reminds me of her.

"When my dearest aunt died every one was too much occupied in their own grief to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness with the most anxious affection. Poor Justine was very ill; but other trials were reserved for her.

"One by one, her brothers and sister died; and her mother, with the exception of her neglected daughter, was left childless. The conscience of the woman was troubled; she began to think that the deaths of her favourites was a judgement from heaven to chastise her partiality. She was a Roman Catholic; and I believe her confessor confirmed the idea which she had conceived. Accordingly, a few months after your departure for Ingolstadt, Justine was called home by her repentant mother. Poor girl! She wept when she quitted our house; she was much altered since the death of my aunt; grief had given softness and a winning mildness to her manners, which had before been remarkable for vivacity. Nor was her residence at her mother's house of a nature to restore her gaiety. The poor woman was very vacillating in her repentance. She sometimes begged Justine to forgive her unkindness, but much oftener accused her of having caused the deaths of her brothers and sister. Perpetual fretting at length threw Madame Moritz into a decline, which at first increased her irritability, but she is now at peace for ever. She died on the first approach of cold weather, at the beginning of this last winter. Justine has just returned to us; and I assure you I love her tenderly. She is very clever and gentle, and extremely pretty; as I mentioned before, her mien and her expression continually remind me of my dear aunt.

"I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin, of little darling William. I wish you could see him; he is very tall of his age, with sweet laughing blue eyes, dark eyelashes, and curling hair. When he smiles, two little dimples appear on each cheek, which are rosy with health. He has already had one or two little wives, but Louisa Biron is his favourite, a pretty little girl of five years of age.

"Now, dear Victor, I dare say you wish to be indulged in a little gossip concerning the good people of Geneva. The pretty Miss Mansfield has already received the congratulatory visits on her approaching marriage with a young Englishman, John Melbourne, Esq. Her ugly sister, Manon, married M. Duvillard, the rich banker, last autumn. Your favourite schoolfellow, Louis Manoir, has suffered several misfortunes since the departure of Clerval from Geneva. But he has already recovered his spirits, and is reported to be on the point of marrying a lively pretty Frenchwoman, Madame Tavernier. She is a widow, and much older than Manoir; but she is very much admired, and a favourite with everybody.

"I have written myself into better spirits, dear cousin; but my anxiety returns upon me as I conclude. Write, dearest Victor,-one line-one word will be a blessing to us. Ten thousand thanks to Henry for his kindness, his affection, and his many letters; we are sincerely grateful. Adieu! my cousin; take care of yourself; and, I entreat you, write!

"Elizabeth Lavenza.

"Geneva, March 18th, 17-."

"Dear, dear Elizabeth!" I exclaimed, when I had read her letter: "I will write instantly and relieve them from the anxiety they must feel." I wrote, and this exertion greatly fatigued me; but my convalescence had commenced, and proceeded regularly. In another fortnight I was able to leave my chamber.

One of my first duties on my recovery was to introduce Clerval to the several professors of the university. In doing this, I underwent a kind of rough usage, ill befitting the wounds that my mind had sustained. Ever since the fatal night, the end of my labours, and the beginning of my misfortunes, I had conceived a violent antipathy even to the name of natural philosophy. When I was otherwise quite restored to health, the sight of a chemical instrument would renew all the agony of my nervous symptoms. Henry saw this, and had removed all my apparatus from my view. He had also changed my apartment; for he perceived that I had acquired a dislike for the room which had previously been my laboratory. But these cares of Clerval were made of no avail when I visited the professors. M. Waldman inflicted torture when he praised, with kindness and warmth, the astonishing progress I had made in the sciences. He soon perceived that I disliked the subject; but not guessing the real cause, he attributed my feelings to modesty, and changed the subject from my improvement, to the science itself, with a desire, as I evidently saw, of drawing me out. What could I do? He meant to please, and he tormented me. I felt as if he had placed carefully, one by one, in my view those instruments which were to be afterwards used in putting me to a slow and cruel death. I writhed under his words, yet dared not exhibit the pain I felt. Clerval, whose eyes and feelings were always quick in discerning the sensations of others, declined the subject, alleging, in excuse, his total ignorance; and the conversation took a more general turn. I thanked my friend from my heart, but I did not speak. I saw plainly that he was surprised, but he never attempted to draw my secret from me; and although I loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence that knew no bounds, yet I could never persuade myself to confide in him that event which was so often present to my recollection, but which I feared the detail to another would only impress more deeply.

M. Krempe was not equally docile; and in my condition at that time, of almost insupportable sensitiveness, his harsh blunt encomiums gave me even more pain than the benevolent approbation of M. Waldman. "D-n the fellow!" cried he; "why, M. Clerval, I assure you he has outstript us all. Ay, stare if you please; but it is nevertheless true. A youngster who, but a few years ago, believed in Cornelius Agrippa as firmly as in the gospel, has now set himself at the head of the university; and if he is not soon pulled down, we shall all be out of countenance.-Ay, ay," continued he, observing my face expressive of suffering, "M. Frankenstein is modest; an excellent quality in a young man. Young men should be diffident of themselves, you know, M. Clerval: I was myself when young; but that wears out in a very short time."

M. Krempe had now commenced an eulogy on himself, which happily turned the conversation from a subject that was so annoying to me.

Clerval had never sympathised in my tastes for natural science; and his literary pursuits differed wholly from those which had occupied me. He came to the university with the design of making himself complete master of the oriental languages, and thus he should open a field for the plan of life he had marked out for himself. Resolved to pursue no inglorious career, he turned his eyes toward the East, as affording scope for his spirit of enterprise. The Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit languages engaged his attention, and I was easily induced to enter on the same studies. Idleness had ever been irksome to me, and now that I wished to fly from reflection, and hated my former studies, I felt great relief in being the fellow-pupil with my friend, and found not only instruction but consolation in the works of the orientalists. I did not, like him, attempt a critical knowledge of their dialects, for I did not contemplate making any other use of them than temporary amusement. I read merely to understand their meaning, and they well repaid my labours. Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating, to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of any other country. When you read their writings, life appears to consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses,-in the smiles and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart. How different from the manly and heroical poetry of Greece and Rome!

Summer passed away in these occupations, and my return to Geneva was fixed for the latter end of autumn; but being delayed by several accidents, winter and snow arrived, the roads were deemed impassable, and my journey was retarded until the ensuing spring. I felt this delay very bitterly; for I longed to see my native town and my beloved friends. My return had only been delayed so long, from an unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he had become acquainted with any of its inhabitants. The winter, however, was spent cheerfully; and although the spring was uncommonly late, when it came its beauty compensated for its dilatoriness.

The month of May had already commenced, and I expected the letter daily which was to fix the date of my departure, when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt, that I might bid a personal farewell to the country I had so long inhabited. I acceded with pleasure to this proposition: I was fond of exercise, and Clerval had always been my favourite companion in the ramble of this nature that I had taken among the scenes of my native country.

We passed a fortnight in these perambulations: my health and spirits had long been restored, and they gained additional strength from the salubrious air I breathed, the natural incidents of our progress, and the conversation of my friend. Study had before secluded me from the intercourse of my fellow-creatures, and rendered me unsocial; but Clerval called forth the better feelings of my heart; he again taught me to love the aspect of nature, and the cheerful faces of children. Excellent friend! how sincerely you did love me, and endeavour to elevate my mind until it was on a level with your own. A selfish pursuit had cramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and affection warmed and opened my senses; I became the same happy creature who, a few years ago, loved and beloved by all, had no sorrow or care. When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations. A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy. The present season was indeed divine; the flowers of spring bloomed in the hedges, while those of summer were already in bud. I was undisturbed by thoughts which during the preceding year had pressed upon me, notwithstanding my endeavours to throw them off, with an invincible burden.

Henry rejoiced in my gaiety, and sincerely sympathised in my feelings: he exerted himself to amuse me, while he expressed the sensations that filled his soul. The resources of his mind on this occasion were truly astonishing: his conversation was full of imagination; and very often, in imitation of the Persian and Arabic writers, he invented tales of wonderful fancy and passion. At other times he repeated my favourite poems, or drew me out into arguments, which he supported with great ingenuity.

We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the peasants were dancing, and every one we met appeared gay and happy. My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity.

Chapter 10

I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood beside the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier, that with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills to barricade the valley. The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial Nature was broken only by the brawling waves or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the avalanche or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands. These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me from all littleness of feeling, and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillised it. In some degree, also, they diverted my mind from the thoughts over which it had brooded for the last month. I retired to rest at night; my slumbers, as it were, waited on and ministered to by the assemblance of grand shapes which I had contemplated during the day. They congregated round me; the unstained snowy mountain-top, the glittering pinnacle, the pine woods, and ragged bare ravine, the eagle, soaring amidst the clouds-they all gathered round me and bade me be at peace.

Where had they fled when the next morning I awoke? All of soul-inspiriting fled with sleep, and dark melancholy clouded every thought. The rain was pouring in torrents, and thick mists hid the summits of the mountains, so that I even saw not the faces of those mighty friends. Still I would penetrate their misty veil and seek them in their cloudy retreats. What were rain and storm to me? My mule was brought to the door, and I resolved to ascend to the summit of Montanvert. I remembered the effect that the view of the tremendous and ever-moving glacier had produced upon my mind when I first saw it. It had then filled me with a sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the soul and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy. The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget the passing cares of life. I determined to go without a guide, for I was well acquainted with the path, and the presence of another would destroy the solitary grandeur of the scene.

The ascent is precipitous, but the path is cut into continual and short windings, which enable you to surmount the perpendicularity of the mountain. It is a scene terrifically desolate. In a thousand spots the traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie broken and strewed on the ground, some entirely destroyed, others bent, leaning upon the jutting rocks of the mountain or transversely upon other trees. The path, as you ascend higher, is intersected by ravines of snow, down which stones continually roll from above; one of them is particularly dangerous, as the slightest sound, such as even speaking in a loud voice, produces a concussion of air sufficient to draw destruction upon the head of the speaker. The pines are not tall or luxuriant, but they are sombre and add an air of severity to the scene. I looked on the valley beneath; vast mists were rising from the rivers which ran through it and curling in thick wreaths around the opposite mountains, whose summits were hid in the uniform clouds, while rain poured from the dark sky and added to the melancholy impression I received from the objects around me. Alas! Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings. If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.

We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.
We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free.
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!

It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent. For some time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice. A mist covered both that and the surrounding mountains. Presently a breeze dissipated the cloud, and I descended upon the glacier. The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and interspersed by rifts that sink deep. The field of ice is almost a league in width, but I spent nearly two hours in crossing it. The opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock. From the side where I now stood Montanvert was exactly opposite, at the distance of a league; and above it rose Mont Blanc, in awful majesty. I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea, or rather the vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains, whose aerial summits hung over its recesses. Their icy and glittering peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds. My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy; I exclaimed, "Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life."

As I said this I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man. I was troubled; a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me, but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains. I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror, resolving to wait his approach and then close with him in mortal combat. He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely observed this; rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt.

"Devil," I exclaimed, "do you dare approach me? And do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! And, oh! That I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!"

"I expected this reception," said the dæmon. "All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends."

"Abhorred monster! Fiend that thou art! The tortures of hell are too mild a vengeance for thy crimes. Wretched devil! You reproach me with your creation, come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I so negligently bestowed."

My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another.

He easily eluded me and said,

"Be calm! I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."

"Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must fall."

"How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing? They spurn and hate me. The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge. These bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me than your fellow beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of my existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves for my destruction. Shall I not then hate them who abhor me? I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness. Yet it is in your power to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great, that not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage. Let your compassion be moved, and do not disdain me. Listen to my tale; when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve. But hear me. The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned. Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man! Yet I ask you not to spare me; listen to me, and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands."

"Why do you call to my remembrance," I rejoined, "circumstances of which I shudder to reflect, that I have been the miserable origin and author? Cursed be the day, abhorred devil, in which you first saw light! Cursed (although I curse myself) be the hands that formed you! You have made me wretched beyond expression. You have left me no power to consider whether I am just to you or not. Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form."

"Thus I relieve thee, my creator," he said, and placed his hated hands before my eyes, which I flung from me with violence; "thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor. Still thou canst listen to me and grant me thy compassion. By the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this from you. Hear my tale; it is long and strange, and the temperature of this place is not fitting to your fine sensations; come to the hut upon the mountain. The sun is yet high in the heavens; before it descends to hide itself behind your snowy precipices and illuminate another world, you will have heard my story and can decide. On you it rests, whether I quit for ever the neighbourhood of man and lead a harmless life, or become the scourge of your fellow creatures and the author of your own speedy ruin."

As he said this he led the way across the ice; I followed. My heart was full, and I did not answer him, but as I proceeded, I weighed the various arguments that he had used and determined at least to listen to his tale. I was partly urged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my resolution. I had hitherto supposed him to be the murderer of my brother, and I eagerly sought a confirmation or denial of this opinion. For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness. These motives urged me to comply with his demand. We crossed the ice, therefore, and ascended the opposite rock. The air was cold, and the rain again began to descend; we entered the hut, the fiend with an air of exultation, I with a heavy heart and depressed spirits. But I consented to listen, and seating myself by the fire which my odious companion had lighted, he thus began his tale.

Chapter 12

"I lay on my straw, but I could not sleep. I thought of the occurrences of the day. What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people, and I longed to join them, but dared not. I remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers, and resolved, whatever course of conduct I might hereafter think it right to pursue, that for the present I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching and endeavouring to discover the motives which influenced their actions.

"The cottagers arose the next morning before the sun. The young woman arranged the cottage and prepared the food, and the youth departed after the first meal.

"This day was passed in the same routine as that which preceded it. The young man was constantly employed out of doors, and the girl in various laborious occupations within. The old man, whom I soon perceived to be blind, employed his leisure hours on his instrument or in contemplation. Nothing could exceed the love and respect which the younger cottagers exhibited towards their venerable companion. They performed towards him every little office of affection and duty with gentleness, and he rewarded them by his benevolent smiles.

"They were not entirely happy. The young man and his companion often went apart and appeared to weep. I saw no cause for their unhappiness, but I was deeply affected by it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched. Yet why were these gentle beings unhappy? They possessed a delightful house (for such it was in my eyes) and every luxury; they had a fire to warm them when chill and delicious viands when hungry; they were dressed in excellent clothes; and, still more, they enjoyed one another's company and speech, interchanging each day looks of affection and kindness. What did their tears imply? Did they really express pain? I was at first unable to solve these questions, but perpetual attention and time explained to me many appearances which were at first enigmatic.

"A considerable period elapsed before I discovered one of the causes of the uneasiness of this amiable family: it was poverty, and they suffered that evil in a very distressing degree. Their nourishment consisted entirely of the vegetables of their garden and the milk of one cow, which gave very little during the winter, when its masters could scarcely procure food to support it. They often, I believe, suffered the pangs of hunger very poignantly, especially the two younger cottagers, for several times they placed food before the old man when they reserved none for themselves.

"This trait of kindness moved me sensibly. I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption, but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained and satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and roots which I gathered from a neighbouring wood.

"I discovered also another means through which I was enabled to assist their labours. I found that the youth spent a great part of each day in collecting wood for the family fire, and during the night I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days.

"I remember, the first time that I did this, the young woman, when she opened the door in the morning, appeared greatly astonished on seeing a great pile of wood on the outside. She uttered some words in a loud voice, and the youth joined her, who also expressed surprise. I observed, with pleasure, that he did not go to the forest that day, but spent it in repairing the cottage and cultivating the garden.

"By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds. I perceived that the words they spoke sometimes produced pleasure or pain, smiles or sadness, in the minds and countenances of the hearers. This was indeed a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it. But I was baffled in every attempt I made for this purpose. Their pronunciation was quick, and the words they uttered, not having any apparent connection with visible objects, I was unable to discover any clue by which I could unravel the mystery of their reference. By great application, however, and after having remained during the space of several revolutions of the moon in my hovel, I discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar objects of discourse; I learned and applied the words, fire, milk, bread, and wood. I learned also the names of the cottagers themselves. The youth and his companion had each of them several names, but the old man had only one, which was father. The girl was called sister or Agatha, and the youth Felix, brother, or son. I cannot describe the delight I felt when I learned the ideas appropriated to each of these sounds and was able to pronounce them. I distinguished several other words without being able as yet to understand or apply them, such as good, dearest, unhappy.

"I spent the winter in this manner. The gentle manners and beauty of the cottagers greatly endeared them to me; when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathised in their joys. I saw few human beings besides them, and if any other happened to enter the cottage, their harsh manners and rude gait only enhanced to me the superior accomplishments of my friends. The old man, I could perceive, often endeavoured to encourage his children, as sometimes I found that he called them, to cast off their melancholy. He would talk in a cheerful accent, with an expression of goodness that bestowed pleasure even upon me. Agatha listened with respect, her eyes sometimes filled with tears, which she endeavoured to wipe away unperceived; but I generally found that her countenance and tone were more cheerful after having listened to the exhortations of her father. It was not thus with Felix. He was always the saddest of the group, and even to my unpractised senses, he appeared to have suffered more deeply than his friends. But if his countenance was more sorrowful, his voice was more cheerful than that of his sister, especially when he addressed the old man.

"I could mention innumerable instances which, although slight, marked the dispositions of these amiable cottagers. In the midst of poverty and want, Felix carried with pleasure to his sister the first little white flower that peeped out from beneath the snowy ground. Early in the morning, before she had risen, he cleared away the snow that obstructed her path to the milk-house, drew water from the well, and brought the wood from the outhouse, where, to his perpetual astonishment, he found his store always replenished by an invisible hand. In the day, I believe, he worked sometimes for a neighbouring farmer, because he often went forth and did not return until dinner, yet brought no wood with him. At other times he worked in the garden, but as there was little to do in the frosty season, he read to the old man and Agatha.

"This reading had puzzled me extremely at first, but by degrees I discovered that he uttered many of the same sounds when he read as when he talked. I conjectured, therefore, that he found on the paper signs for speech which he understood, and I ardently longed to comprehend these also; but how was that possible when I did not even understand the sounds for which they stood as signs? I improved, however, sensibly in this science, but not sufficiently to follow up any kind of conversation, although I applied my whole mind to the endeavour, for I easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself to the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first become master of their language, which knowledge might enable me to make them overlook the deformity of my figure, for with this also the contrast perpetually presented to my eyes had made me acquainted.

"I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers-their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions; but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.

"As the sun became warmer and the light of day longer, the snow vanished, and I beheld the bare trees and the black earth. From this time Felix was more employed, and the heart-moving indications of impending famine disappeared. Their food, as I afterwards found, was coarse, but it was wholesome; and they procured a sufficiency of it. Several new kinds of plants sprang up in the garden, which they dressed; and these signs of comfort increased daily as the season advanced.

"The old man, leaning on his son, walked each day at noon, when it did not rain, as I found it was called when the heavens poured forth its waters. This frequently took place, but a high wind quickly dried the earth, and the season became far more pleasant than it had been.

"My mode of life in my hovel was uniform. During the morning I attended the motions of the cottagers, and when they were dispersed in various occupations, I slept; the remainder of the day was spent in observing my friends. When they had retired to rest, if there was any moon or the night was star-light, I went into the woods and collected my own food and fuel for the cottage. When I returned, as often as it was necessary, I cleared their path from the snow and performed those offices that I had seen done by Felix. I afterwards found that these labours, performed by an invisible hand, greatly astonished them; and once or twice I heard them, on these occasions, utter the words good spirit, wonderful; but I did not then understand the signification of these terms.

"My thoughts now became more active, and I longed to discover the motives and feelings of these lovely creatures; I was inquisitive to know why Felix appeared so miserable and Agatha so sad. I thought (foolish wretch!) that it might be in my power to restore happiness to these deserving people. When I slept or was absent, the forms of the venerable blind father, the gentle Agatha, and the excellent Felix flitted before me. I looked upon them as superior beings who would be the arbiters of my future destiny. I formed in my imagination a thousand pictures of presenting myself to them, and their reception of me. I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle demeanour and conciliating words, I should first win their favour and afterwards their love.

"These thoughts exhilarated me and led me to apply with fresh ardour to the acquiring the art of language. My organs were indeed harsh, but supple; and although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their tones, yet I pronounced such words as I understood with tolerable ease. It was as the ass and the lap-dog; yet surely the gentle ass whose intentions were affectionate, although his manners were rude, deserved better treatment than blows and execration.

"The pleasant showers and genial warmth of spring greatly altered the aspect of the earth. Men who before this change seemed to have been hid in caves dispersed themselves and were employed in various arts of cultivation. The birds sang in more cheerful notes, and the leaves began to bud forth on the trees. Happy, happy earth! Fit habitation for gods, which, so short a time before, was bleak, damp, and unwholesome. My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy."

Chapter 15

"Such was the history of my beloved cottagers. It impressed me deeply. I learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire their virtues and to deprecate the vices of mankind.

"As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil, benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed. But in giving an account of the progress of my intellect, I must not omit a circumstance which occurred in the beginning of the month of August of the same year.

"One night during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood where I collected my own food and brought home firing for my protectors, I found on the ground a leathern portmanteau containing several articles of dress and some books. I eagerly seized the prize and returned with it to my hovel. Fortunately the books were written in the language, the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage; they consisted of Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now continually studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations.

"I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection. In the Sorrows of Werter, besides the interest of its simple and affecting story, so many opinions are canvassed and so many lights thrown upon what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects that I found in it a never-ending source of speculation and astonishment. The gentle and domestic manners it described, combined with lofty sentiments and feelings, which had for their object something out of self, accorded well with my experience among my protectors and with the wants which were for ever alive in my own bosom. But I thought Werter himself a more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined; his character contained no pretension, but it sank deep. The disquisitions upon death and suicide were calculated to fill me with wonder. I did not pretend to enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards the opinions of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely understanding it.

"As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and condition. I found myself similar yet at the same time strangely unlike to the beings concerning whom I read and to whose conversation I was a listener. I sympathised with and partly understood them, but I was unformed in mind; I was dependent on none and related to none. 'The path of my departure was free,' and there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them.

"The volume of Plutarch's Lives which I possessed contained the histories of the first founders of the ancient republics. This book had a far different effect upon me from the Sorrows of Werter. I learned from Werter's imaginations despondency and gloom, but Plutarch taught me high thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages. Many things I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas. But I was perfectly unacquainted with towns and large assemblages of men. The cottage of my protectors had been the only school in which I had studied human nature, but this book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species. I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as far as I understood the signification of those terms, relative as they were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone. Induced by these feelings, I was of course led to admire peaceable lawgivers, Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to Romulus and Theseus. The patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should have been imbued with different sensations.

"But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.

"Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these feelings. Soon after my arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of the dress which I had taken from your laboratory. At first I had neglected them, but now that I was able to decipher the characters in which they were written, I began to study them with diligence. It was your journal of the four months that preceded my creation. You minutely described in these papers every step you took in the progress of your work; this history was mingled with accounts of domestic occurrences. You doubtless recollect these papers. Here they are. Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened as I read. 'Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.'

"These were the reflections of my hours of despondency and solitude; but when I contemplated the virtues of the cottagers, their amiable and benevolent dispositions, I persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues they would compassionate me and overlook my personal deformity. Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion and friendship? I resolved, at least, not to despair, but in every way to fit myself for an interview with them which would decide my fate. I postponed this attempt for some months longer, for the importance attached to its success inspired me with a dread lest I should fail. Besides, I found that my understanding improved so much with every day's experience that I was unwilling to commence this undertaking until a few more months should have added to my sagacity.

"Several changes, in the meantime, took place in the cottage. The presence of Safie diffused happiness among its inhabitants, and I also found that a greater degree of plenty reigned there. Felix and Agatha spent more time in amusement and conversation, and were assisted in their labours by servants. They did not appear rich, but they were contented and happy; their feelings were serene and peaceful, while mine became every day more tumultuous. Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade.

"I endeavoured to crush these fears and to fortify myself for the trial which in a few months I resolved to undergo; and sometimes I allowed my thoughts, unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathising with my feelings and cheering my gloom; their angelic countenances breathed smiles of consolation. But it was all a dream; no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adam's supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him.

"Autumn passed thus. I saw, with surprise and grief, the leaves decay and fall, and nature again assume the barren and bleak appearance it had worn when I first beheld the woods and the lovely moon. Yet I did not heed the bleakness of the weather; I was better fitted by my conformation for the endurance of cold than heat. But my chief delights were the sight of the flowers, the birds, and all the gay apparel of summer; when those deserted me, I turned with more attention towards the cottagers. Their happiness was not decreased by the absence of summer. They loved and sympathised with one another; and their joys, depending on each other, were not interrupted by the casualties that took place around them. The more I saw of them, the greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures; to see their sweet looks directed towards me with affection was the utmost limit of my ambition. I dared not think that they would turn them from me with disdain and horror. The poor that stopped at their door were never driven away. I asked, it is true, for greater treasures than a little food or rest: I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it.

"The winter advanced, and an entire revolution of the seasons had taken place since I awoke into life. My attention at this time was solely directed towards my plan of introducing myself into the cottage of my protectors. I revolved many projects, but that on which I finally fixed was to enter the dwelling when the blind old man should be alone. I had sagacity enough to discover that the unnatural hideousness of my person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly beheld me. My voice, although harsh, had nothing terrible in it; I thought, therefore, that if in the absence of his children I could gain the good will and mediation of the old De Lacey, I might by his means be tolerated by my younger protectors.

"One day, when the sun shone on the red leaves that strewed the ground and diffused cheerfulness, although it denied warmth, Safie, Agatha, and Felix departed on a long country walk, and the old man, at his own desire, was left alone in the cottage. When his children had departed, he took up his guitar and played several mournful but sweet airs, more sweet and mournful than I had ever heard him play before. At first his countenance was illuminated with pleasure, but as he continued, thoughtfulness and sadness succeeded; at length, laying aside the instrument, he sat absorbed in reflection.

"My heart beat quick; this was the hour and moment of trial, which would decide my hopes or realise my fears. The servants were gone to a neighbouring fair. All was silent in and around the cottage; it was an excellent opportunity; yet, when I proceeded to execute my plan, my limbs failed me and I sank to the ground. Again I rose, and exerting all the firmness of which I was master, removed the planks which I had placed before my hovel to conceal my retreat. The fresh air revived me, and with renewed determination I approached the door of their cottage.

"I knocked. 'Who is there?' said the old man. 'Come in.'

"I entered. 'Pardon this intrusion,' said I; 'I am a traveller in want of a little rest; you would greatly oblige me if you would allow me to remain a few minutes before the fire.'

"'Enter,' said De Lacey, 'and I will try in what manner I can to relieve your wants; but, unfortunately, my children are from home, and as I am blind, I am afraid I shall find it difficult to procure food for you.'

"'Do not trouble yourself, my kind host; I have food; it is warmth and rest only that I need.'

"I sat down, and a silence ensued. I knew that every minute was precious to me, yet I remained irresolute in what manner to commence the interview, when the old man addressed me.

'By your language, stranger, I suppose you are my countryman; are you French?'

"'No; but I was educated by a French family and understand that language only. I am now going to claim the protection of some friends, whom I sincerely love, and of whose favour I have some hopes.'

"'Are they Germans?'

"'No, they are French. But let us change the subject. I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world for ever.'

"'Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity. Rely, therefore, on your hopes; and if these friends are good and amiable, do not despair.'

"'They are kind-they are the most excellent creatures in the world; but, unfortunately, they are prejudiced against me. I have good dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable monster.'

"'That is indeed unfortunate; but if you are really blameless, cannot you undeceive them?'

"'I am about to undertake that task; and it is on that account that I feel so many overwhelming terrors. I tenderly love these friends; I have, unknown to them, been for many months in the habits of daily kindness towards them; but they believe that I wish to injure them, and it is that prejudice which I wish to overcome.'

"'Where do these friends reside?'

"'Near this spot.'

"The old man paused and then continued, 'If you will unreservedly confide to me the particulars of your tale, I perhaps may be of use in undeceiving them. I am blind and cannot judge of your countenance, but there is something in your words which persuades me that you are sincere. I am poor and an exile, but it will afford me true pleasure to be in any way serviceable to a human creature.'

"'Excellent man! I thank you and accept your generous offer. You raise me from the dust by this kindness; and I trust that, by your aid, I shall not be driven from the society and sympathy of your fellow creatures.'

"'Heaven forbid! Even if you were really criminal, for that can only drive you to desperation, and not instigate you to virtue. I also am unfortunate; I and my family have been condemned, although innocent; judge, therefore, if I do not feel for your misfortunes.'

"'How can I thank you, my best and only benefactor? From your lips first have I heard the voice of kindness directed towards me; I shall be for ever grateful; and your present humanity assures me of success with those friends whom I am on the point of meeting.'

"'May I know the names and residence of those friends?'

"I paused. This, I thought, was the moment of decision, which was to rob me of or bestow happiness on me for ever. I struggled vainly for firmness sufficient to answer him, but the effort destroyed all my remaining strength; I sank on the chair and sobbed aloud. At that moment I heard the steps of my younger protectors. I had not a moment to lose, but seizing the hand of the old man, I cried, 'Now is the time! Save and protect me! You and your family are the friends whom I seek. Do not you desert me in the hour of trial!'

"'Great God!' exclaimed the old man. 'Who are you?'

"At that instant the cottage door was opened, and Felix, Safie, and Agatha entered. Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me? Agatha fainted, and Safie, unable to attend to her friend, rushed out of the cottage. Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung, in a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick. I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sank within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained. I saw him on the point of repeating his blow, when, overcome by pain and anguish, I quitted the cottage, and in the general tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel."

Chapter 17

The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the expectation of a reply. But I was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the full extent of his proposition. He continued,

"You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede."

The latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger that had died away while he narrated his peaceful life among the cottagers, and as he said this I could no longer suppress the rage that burned within me.

"I do refuse it," I replied; "and no torture shall ever extort a consent from me. You may render me the most miserable of men, but you shall never make me base in my own eyes. Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world. Begone! I have answered you; you may torture me, but I will never consent."

"You are in the wrong," replied the fiend; "and instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care; I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth."

A fiendish rage animated him as he said this; his face was wrinkled into contortions too horrible for human eyes to behold; but presently he calmed himself and proceeded-

"I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me, for you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess. If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a hundredfold; for that one creature's sake I would make peace with the whole kind! But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realised. What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; the gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall content me. It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now feel. Oh! My creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny me my request!"

I was moved. I shuddered when I thought of the possible consequences of my consent, but I felt that there was some justice in his argument. His tale and the feelings he now expressed proved him to be a creature of fine sensations, and did I not as his maker owe him all the portion of happiness that it was in my power to bestow? He saw my change of feeling and continued,

"If you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again; I will go to the vast wilds of South America. My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment. My companion will be of the same nature as myself and will be content with the same fare. We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food. The picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and cruelty. Pitiless as you have been towards me, I now see compassion in your eyes; let me seize the favourable moment and persuade you to promise what I so ardently desire."

"You propose," replied I, "to fly from the habitations of man, to dwell in those wilds where the beasts of the field will be your only companions. How can you, who long for the love and sympathy of man, persevere in this exile? You will return and again seek their kindness, and you will meet with their detestation; your evil passions will be renewed, and you will then have a companion to aid you in the task of destruction. This may not be; cease to argue the point, for I cannot consent."

"How inconstant are your feelings! But a moment ago you were moved by my representations, and why do you again harden yourself to my complaints? I swear to you, by the earth which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that with the companion you bestow, I will quit the neighbourhood of man and dwell, as it may chance, in the most savage of places. My evil passions will have fled, for I shall meet with sympathy! My life will flow quietly away, and in my dying moments I shall not curse my maker."

His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him and sometimes felt a wish to console him, but when I looked upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations; I thought that as I could not sympathise with him, I had no right to withhold from him the small portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow.

"You swear," I said, "to be harmless; but have you not already shown a degree of malice that should reasonably make me distrust you? May not even this be a feint that will increase your triumph by affording a wider scope for your revenge?"

"How is this? I must not be trifled with, and I demand an answer. If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose existence everyone will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being and become linked to the chain of existence and events from which I am now excluded."

I paused some time to reflect on all he had related and the various arguments which he had employed. I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him. His power and threats were not omitted in my calculations; a creature who could exist in the ice-caves of the glaciers and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices was a being possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with. After a long pause of reflection I concluded that the justice due both to him and my fellow creatures demanded of me that I should comply with his request. Turning to him, therefore, I said,

"I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe for ever, and every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as soon as I shall deliver into your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile."

"I swear," he cried, "by the sun, and by the blue sky of heaven, and by the fire of love that burns my heart, that if you grant my prayer, while they exist you shall never behold me again. Depart to your home and commence your labours; I shall watch their progress with unutterable anxiety; and fear not but that when you are ready I shall appear."

Saying this, he suddenly quitted me, fearful, perhaps, of any change in my sentiments. I saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than the flight of an eagle, and quickly lost among the undulations of the sea of ice.

His tale had occupied the whole day, and the sun was upon the verge of the horizon when he departed. I knew that I ought to hasten my descent towards the valley, as I should soon be encompassed in darkness; but my heart was heavy, and my steps slow. The labour of winding among the little paths of the mountain and fixing my feet firmly as I advanced perplexed me, occupied as I was by the emotions which the occurrences of the day had produced. Night was far advanced when I came to the halfway resting-place and seated myself beside the fountain. The stars shone at intervals as the clouds passed from over them; the dark pines rose before me, and every here and there a broken tree lay on the ground; it was a scene of wonderful solemnity and stirred strange thoughts within me. I wept bitterly, and clasping my hands in agony, I exclaimed, "Oh! stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness."

These were wild and miserable thoughts, but I cannot describe to you how the eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me and how I listened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its way to consume me.

Morning dawned before I arrived at the village of Chamounix; I took no rest, but returned immediately to Geneva. Even in my own heart I could give no expression to my sensations-they weighed on me with a mountain's weight and their excess destroyed my agony beneath them. Thus I returned home, and entering the house, presented myself to the family. My haggard and wild appearance awoke intense alarm, but I answered no question, scarcely did I speak. I felt as if I were placed under a ban-as if I had no right to claim their sympathies-as if never more might I enjoy companionship with them. Yet even thus I loved them to adoration; and to save them, I resolved to dedicate myself to my most abhorred task. The prospect of such an occupation made every other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the reality of life.

Chapter 19

London was our present point of rest; we determined to remain several months in this wonderful and celebrated city. Clerval desired the intercourse of the men of genius and talent who flourished at this time, but this was with me a secondary object; I was principally occupied with the means of obtaining the information necessary for the completion of my promise and quickly availed myself of the letters of introduction that I had brought with me, addressed to the most distinguished natural philosophers.

If this journey had taken place during my days of study and happiness, it would have afforded me inexpressible pleasure. But a blight had come over my existence, and I only visited these people for the sake of the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest was so terribly profound. Company was irksome to me; when alone, I could fill my mind with the sights of heaven and earth; the voice of Henry soothed me, and I could thus cheat myself into a transitory peace. But busy, uninteresting, joyous faces brought back despair to my heart. I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my fellow men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and Justine, and to reflect on the events connected with those names filled my soul with anguish.

But in Clerval I saw the image of my former self; he was inquisitive and anxious to gain experience and instruction. The difference of manners which he observed was to him an inexhaustible source of instruction and amusement. He was also pursuing an object he had long had in view. His design was to visit India, in the belief that he had in his knowledge of its various languages, and in the views he had taken of its society, the means of materially assisting the progress of European colonization and trade. In Britain only could he further the execution of his plan. He was for ever busy, and the only check to his enjoyments was my sorrowful and dejected mind. I tried to conceal this as much as possible, that I might not debar him from the pleasures natural to one who was entering on a new scene of life, undisturbed by any care or bitter recollection. I often refused to accompany him, alleging another engagement, that I might remain alone. I now also began to collect the materials necessary for my new creation, and this was to me like the torture of single drops of water continually falling on the head. Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver, and my heart to palpitate.

After passing some months in London, we received a letter from a person in Scotland who had formerly been our visitor at Geneva. He mentioned the beauties of his native country and asked us if those were not sufficient allurements to induce us to prolong our journey as far north as Perth, where he resided. Clerval eagerly desired to accept this invitation, and I, although I abhorred society, wished to view again mountains and streams and all the wondrous works with which Nature adorns her chosen dwelling-places.

We had arrived in England at the beginning of October, and it was now February. We accordingly determined to commence our journey towards the north at the expiration of another month. In this expedition we did not intend to follow the great road to Edinburgh, but to visit Windsor, Oxford, Matlock, and the Cumberland lakes, resolving to arrive at the completion of this tour about the end of July. I packed up my chemical instruments and the materials I had collected, resolving to finish my labours in some obscure nook in the northern highlands of Scotland.

We quitted London on the 27th of March and remained a few days at Windsor, rambling in its beautiful forest. This was a new scene to us mountaineers; the majestic oaks, the quantity of game, and the herds of stately deer were all novelties to us.

From thence we proceeded to Oxford. As we entered this city, our minds were filled with the remembrance of the events that had been transacted there more than a century and a half before. It was here that Charles I. had collected his forces. This city had remained faithful to him, after the whole nation had forsaken his cause to join the standard of Parliament and liberty. The memory of that unfortunate king and his companions, the amiable Falkland, the insolent Goring, his queen, and son, gave a peculiar interest to every part of the city which they might be supposed to have inhabited. The spirit of elder days found a dwelling here, and we delighted to trace its footsteps. If these feelings had not found an imaginary gratification, the appearance of the city had yet in itself sufficient beauty to obtain our admiration. The colleges are ancient and picturesque; the streets are almost magnificent; and the lovely Isis, which flows beside it through meadows of exquisite verdure, is spread forth into a placid expanse of waters, which reflects its majestic assemblage of towers, and spires, and domes, embosomed among aged trees.

I enjoyed this scene, and yet my enjoyment was embittered both by the memory of the past and the anticipation of the future. I was formed for peaceful happiness. During my youthful days discontent never visited my mind, and if I was ever overcome by ennui, the sight of what is beautiful in nature or the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man could always interest my heart and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be-a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its environs and endeavouring to identify every spot which might relate to the most animating epoch of English history. Our little voyages of discovery were often prolonged by the successive objects that presented themselves. We visited the tomb of the illustrious Hampden and the field on which that patriot fell. For a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to contemplate the divine ideas of liberty and self-sacrifice of which these sights were the monuments and the remembrancers. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains and look around me with a free and lofty spirit, but the iron had eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my miserable self.

We left Oxford with regret and proceeded to Matlock, which was our next place of rest. The country in the neighbourhood of this village resembled, to a greater degree, the scenery of Switzerland; but everything is on a lower scale, and the green hills want the crown of distant white Alps which always attend on the piny mountains of my native country. We visited the wondrous cave and the little cabinets of natural history, where the curiosities are disposed in the same manner as in the collections at Servox and Chamounix. The latter name made me tremble when pronounced by Henry, and I hastened to quit Matlock, with which that terrible scene was thus associated.

From Derby, still journeying northwards, we passed two months in Cumberland and Westmorland. I could now almost fancy myself among the Swiss mountains. The little patches of snow which yet lingered on the northern sides of the mountains, the lakes, and the dashing of the rocky streams were all familiar and dear sights to me. Here also we made some acquaintances, who almost contrived to cheat me into happiness. The delight of Clerval was proportionably greater than mine; his mind expanded in the company of men of talent, and he found in his own nature greater capacities and resources than he could have imagined himself to have possessed while he associated with his inferiors. "I could pass my life here," said he to me; "and among these mountains I should scarcely regret Switzerland and the Rhine."

But he found that a traveller's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are for ever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties.

We had scarcely visited the various lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland and conceived an affection for some of the inhabitants when the period of our appointment with our Scotch friend approached, and we left them to travel on. For my own part I was not sorry. I had now neglected my promise for some time, and I feared the effects of the dæmon's disappointment. He might remain in Switzerland and wreak his vengeance on my relatives. This idea pursued me and tormented me at every moment from which I might otherwise have snatched repose and peace. I waited for my letters with feverish impatience; if they were delayed I was miserable and overcome by a thousand fears; and when they arrived and I saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my father, I hardly dared to read and ascertain my fate. Sometimes I thought that the fiend followed me and might expedite my remissness by murdering my companion. When these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry for a moment, but followed him as his shadow, to protect him from the fancied rage of his destroyer. I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me. I was guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime.

I visited Edinburgh with languid eyes and mind; and yet that city might have interested the most unfortunate being. Clerval did not like it so well as Oxford, for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him. But the beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic castle and its environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur's Seat, St. Bernard's Well, and the Pentland Hills, compensated him for the change and filled him with cheerfulness and admiration. But I was impatient to arrive at the termination of my journey.

We left Edinburgh in a week, passing through Coupar, St. Andrew's, and along the banks of the Tay, to Perth, where our friend expected us. But I was in no mood to laugh and talk with strangers or enter into their feelings or plans with the good humour expected from a guest; and accordingly I told Clerval that I wished to make the tour of Scotland alone. "Do you," said I, "enjoy yourself, and let this be our rendezvous. I may be absent a month or two; but do not interfere with my motions, I entreat you; leave me to peace and solitude for a short time; and when I return, I hope it will be with a lighter heart, more congenial to your own temper."

Henry wished to dissuade me, but seeing me bent on this plan, ceased to remonstrate. He entreated me to write often. "I had rather be with you," he said, "in your solitary rambles, than with these Scotch people, whom I do not know; hasten, then, my dear friend, to return, that I may again feel myself somewhat at home, which I cannot do in your absence."

Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of Scotland and finish my work in solitude. I did not doubt but that the monster followed me and would discover himself to me when I should have finished, that he might receive his companion.

With this resolution I traversed the northern highlands and fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labours. It was a place fitted for such a work, being hardly more than a rock whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare. Vegetables and bread, when they indulged in such luxuries, and even fresh water, was to be procured from the mainland, which was about five miles distant.

On the whole island there were but three miserable huts, and one of these was vacant when I arrived. This I hired. It contained but two rooms, and these exhibited all the squalidness of the most miserable penury. The thatch had fallen in, the walls were unplastered, and the door was off its hinges. I ordered it to be repaired, bought some furniture, and took possession, an incident which would doubtless have occasioned some surprise had not all the senses of the cottagers been benumbed by want and squalid poverty. As it was, I lived ungazed at and unmolested, hardly thanked for the pittance of food and clothes which I gave, so much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men.

In this retreat I devoted the morning to labour; but in the evening, when the weather permitted, I walked on the stony beach of the sea to listen to the waves as they roared and dashed at my feet. It was a monotonous yet ever-changing scene. I thought of Switzerland; it was far different from this desolate and appalling landscape. Its hills are covered with vines, and its cottages are scattered thickly in the plains. Its fair lakes reflect a blue and gentle sky, and when troubled by the winds, their tumult is but as the play of a lively infant when compared to the roarings of the giant ocean.

In this manner I distributed my occupations when I first arrived, but as I proceeded in my labour, it became every day more horrible and irksome to me. Sometimes I could not prevail on myself to enter my laboratory for several days, and at other times I toiled day and night in order to complete my work. It was, indeed, a filthy process in which I was engaged. During my first experiment, a kind of enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my employment; my mind was intently fixed on the consummation of my labour, and my eyes were shut to the horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in cold blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands.

Thus situated, employed in the most detestable occupation, immersed in a solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from the actual scene in which I was engaged, my spirits became unequal; I grew restless and nervous. Every moment I feared to meet my persecutor. Sometimes I sat with my eyes fixed on the ground, fearing to raise them lest they should encounter the object which I so much dreaded to behold. I feared to wander from the sight of my fellow creatures lest when alone he should come to claim his companion.

In the mean time I worked on, and my labour was already considerably advanced. I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager hope, which I dared not trust myself to question but which was intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil that made my heart sicken in my bosom.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.

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Chapter 1: Story of the Door

MR. UTTERSON the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove.

"I incline to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let my brother go to the devil in his own way." In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of down-going men. And to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way. His friends were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with obvious relief the appearance of a friend. For all that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions, counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business, that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.

It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them down a by-street in a busy quarter of London. The street was small and what is called quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on the week-days. The inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed, and all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the surplus of their gains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of smiling saleswomen. Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly caught and pleased the eye of the passenger.

Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east, the line was broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point, a certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the street. It was two stories high; showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower story and a blind forehead of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps slouched into the recess and struck matches on the panels; children kept shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife on the mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one had appeared to drive away these random visitors or to repair their ravages.

Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of the by-street; but when they came abreast of the entry, the former lifted up his cane and pointed.

"Did you ever remark that door?" he asked; and when his companion had replied in the affirmative, "It is connected in my mind," added he, "with a very odd story."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of voice, "and what was that?"

"Well, it was this way," returned Mr. Enfield:"I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street, and all the folks asleep-street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church-till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a view-halloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl's own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent, put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So had the child's family, which was only natural. But the doctor's case was what struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with the desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and killing being out of the question, we did the next best. We told the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this, as should make his name stink from one end of London to the other. If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all the time, as we were pitching it in red hot, we were keeping the women off him as best we could, for they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black, sneering coolness-frightened too, I could see that- but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan. 'If you choose to make capital out of this accident,' said he, 'I am naturally helpless. No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,' says he. 'Name your figure.' Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the child's family; he would have clearly liked to stick out; but there was something about the lot of us that meant mischief, and at last he struck. The next thing was to get the money; and where do you think he carried us but to that place with the door?- whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back with the matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I can't mention, though it's one of the points of my story, but it was a name at least very well known and often printed. The figure was stiff; but the signature was good for more than that, if it was only genuine. I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning and come out of it with another man's cheque for close upon a hundred pounds. But he was quite easy and sneering. 'Set your mind at rest,' says he, 'I will stay with you till the banks open and cash the cheque myself.' So we all set off, the doctor, and the child's father, and our friend and myself, and passed the rest of the night in my chambers; and next day, when we had breakfasted, went in a body to the bank. I gave in the check myself, and said I had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine."

"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.

"I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield. "Yes, it's a bad story. For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good. Black-mail, I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth. Black-Mail House is what I call that place with the door, in consequence. Though even that, you know, is far from explaining all," he added, and with the words fell into a vein of musing.

From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather suddenly:
"And you don't know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?"

"A likely place, isn't it?" returned Mr. Enfield. "But I happen to have noticed his address; he lives in some square or other."

"And you never asked about the-place with the door?" said Mr.
Utterson.

"No, sir: I had a delicacy," was the reply. "I feel very strongly about putting questions; i t partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back-garden and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask."

"A very good rule, too," said the lawyer.

" But I have studied the place for myself," continued Mr. Enfield. "It seems scarcely a house. There is no other door, and nobody goes in or out of that one but, once in a great while, the gentleman of my adventure. There are three windows looking on the court on the first floor; none below; the windows are always shut but they're clean. And then there is a chimney which is generally smoking; so somebody must live there. And yet it's not so sure; for the buildings are so packed together about that court, that it's hard to say where one ends and another begins."

The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then,
"Enfield," said Mr. Utterson, "that's a good rule of yours."

"Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield.

"But for all that," continued the lawyer, "there's one point I want to ask: I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the child."

"Well," said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what harm it would do. It was a man of the name of Hyde."

"H'm," said Mr. Utterson. "What sort of a man is he to see?"

"He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can't describe him. And it's not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment."

Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and obviously under a weight of consideration.

"You are sure he used a key?" he inquired at last.

"My dear sir..." began Enfield, surprised out of himself.

"Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must seem strange. The fact is, if I do not ask you the name of the other party, it is because I know it already. You see, Richard, your tale has gone home. If you have been inexact in any point, you had better correct it."

"I think you might have warned me," returned the other, with a touch of sullenness. "But I have been pedantically exact, as you call it. The fellow had a key; and what's more, he has it still. I saw him use it, not a week ago."

Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a word; and the young man presently resumed. "Here is another lesson to say nothing," said he. " I am ashamed of my long tongue. Let us make a bargain never to refer to this again."

"With all my heart," said the lawyer. "I shake hands on that,
Richard."

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Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Chap. 1)

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Chapter 1: Story of the Door MR. UTTERSON the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

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Nightmare: Birth of Horror - Jekyll and Hyde (BBC 1996)

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Analysis of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The battle between science and Christianity

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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - FULL AudioBook 🎧📖 | Greatest🌟AudioBooks V1

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The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

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Lego The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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The slums and boardinghouses for the working and poor classes were built in the middle of the districts of London, often situated off of large factory areas. This location meant that they not only had to deal with the noise of the factories, but the filth as well.

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Find out more
Books
Crime and English Society 1750-1900 by Clive Emsley, 2nd edition (Longman, 1996)

The English Police: A Political and Social History by Clive Emsley, 2nd edition (Longman, 1996)

The Emergence of Penal Policy in Victorian and Edwardian England by Leon Radzinowicz and Roger Hood (Clarendon Press, 1990)

White-Collar Crime in Modern England: Financial Fraud and Business Morality 1845-1929 by George Robb (Cambridge University Press)

Artful Dodgers: Youth and Crime in Early Nineteenth-Century London by Heather Shore (Boydell Press/Royal Historical Society, 1999)

Street Violence in the Nineteenth Century: Media Panic or Real Danger? by Rob Sindall (Leicester University Press, 1990)

The New Police in Nineteenth-Century England: Crime, conflict and control by David Taylor (Manchester University Press, 1997)

Crime, policing and punishment in England 1750-1914 by David Taylor (Macmillan, 1998)

Reconstructing the Criminal: Culture, Law, and Policy in England 1830-1914 by Martin J Wiener (Cambridge University Press)

Women, Crime and Custody in Victorian England by Lucia Zedner (Clarendon Press, 1991)

Places to visit

The London Dungeons - 28-34 Tooley Street, London, Tel: 020 7403 0606. Detailing the darker side of London life for the last 1500 years, the London Dungeons include a section on Jack the Ripper and Victorian crime.

West Midlands Police Museum - Sparkhill Police Station, 607 Stratford Road, Sparkhill, Birmingham. Tel: 0121 626 7181. The West Midlands Police Museum houses a wide range of pictures, information and items to show the development of policing in and around Birmingham.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum - 221B Baker Street, London. The home of the greatest Victorian sleuth, faithfully preserved as it would have been in the nineteenth century.

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Books Crime and English Society 1750-1900 by Clive Emsley, 2nd edition (Longman, 1996) The English Police: A Political and Social History by Clive Emsley, 2nd edition (Longman, 1996) The Emergence of Penal Policy in Victorian and Edwardian England by Leon Radzinowicz and Roger Hood (Clarendon Press, 1990) White-Collar Crime in Modern England: Financial Fraud and Business Morality 1845-1929 by George Robb (Cambridge University Press) Artful Dodgers: Youth and Crime in Early Nineteenth-Century London by Heather Shore (Boydell Press/Royal Historical Society, 1999) Street Violence in the Nineteenth Century: Media Panic or Real Danger?

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As well as sewerage, another "waste removal" problem plagued London in the 19th century: the disposal of the dead. There was little dispute about the means. Burial was the norm; cremation a peculiar foreign custom. The difficulty lay in finding room for an ever-increasing number of corpses. The capital's burgeoning population, upon their decease, were filling up its small churchyards, burial grounds and vaults.

The consequences, wherever demand exceeded supply, were decidedly unpleasant. Coffins were stacked one atop the other in 20-foot-deep shafts, the topmost mere inches from the surface. Putrefying bodies were frequently disturbed, dismembered or destroyed to make room for newcomers. Disinterred bones, dropped by neglectful gravediggers, lay scattered amidst the tombstones; smashed coffins were sold to the poor for firewood. Clergymen and sextons turned a blind eye to the worst practices because burial fees formed a large proportion of their income. Macabre scenes awaited those who pried too closely into the gravedigger's work:

I saw them chopping the head of his coffin away; I should not have known it if I had not seen the head with the teeth; I knew him by his teeth; one tooth was knocked out and the other was splintered; I knew it was my father's head, and I told them to stop, and they laughed ...

Clearance of long-buried bones had always taken place; but the growing demand for burials in crowded grounds meant the work became ever more grisly.

Moreover, by the 1840s London's overcrowded churchyards (and the older, small commercial grounds in the centre of the capital) were not only seen as posing a logistical challenge, but damned as a source of " miasma ". Sanitary reformers quite mistakenly believed that the stench from poorly interred decaying bodies was poisoning the metropolis. The practice of urban burial was touted as a profound menace to public health.

For the middle- and upper-classes, one answer was to remove their dead to commercial "garden cemeteries", spacious parks built in the semi-rural suburbs, such as Kensal Green (opened in 1832) and Highgate (1839). Such places, however, were well beyond the means of the urban poor.

George Alfred Walker - who would acquire the nickname "Graveyard Walker" - a surgeon who took up practice in the slums of Drury Lane in the mid-1830s - determined to address the "miasma" question.

Walker believed that foul-smelling burial grounds produced much ill health in the neighbouring population. He did not deny the influence of sewers, poorly ventilated housing, and the like - but he was certain that graveyard miasma was an important, much neglected predisposing cause of disease. In 1839 he began a long campaign to end "intramural interment", commencing with a pamphlet entitled Gatherings from Graveyards.

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George 'Graveyard' Walker. Illustration: Wellcome

The key to the problem was gas emanating from rotting corpses. The existence of such gases was undisputed - sextons and undertakers were often called up to "tap" coffins in church vaults, drilling a hole to prevent them breaking open with explosive force. Walker dutifully recorded the effects of leaking miasma on the constitution of gravediggers, ranging from general ill health ("pain in the head, heaviness, extreme debility, lachrymation, violent palpitation of the heart, universal trembling, with vomiting") to sudden death. Gas could, indeed, prove fatal: graveyard workers who broke into bloated coffins were occasionally suffocated by the release of "cadaverous vapours".

The overall argument in Gatherings was that concentrated graveyard gases caused instant death in man and beast; foul-smelling grounds, constantly releasing more diffused miasma, did not produce sudden death - but they debilitated those living nearby, according to their level of exposure and individual resistance.

Walker was a skilful propagandist, adept at utilising grisly detail to grab the attention of the reader. His favourite example of malpractice was Enon Chapel, situated in slums north of the Strand.

This dubious place of worship, established in the 1820s largely as a burial speculation, contained a modest cellar in which the deceased were laid to rest in their thousands (ie. corpses were regularly surreptitiously cleared away). Mangled coffins in the chapel vaults produced unclassifiable "body bugs", which sprang from the corpses and lurked in hair and clothing. Worshippers reported foul aromas and "a peculiar taste" during services, praising the Lord with a handkerchief pressed to their nostrils. Some redundant remains were dumped in a sewer that ran directly under the building.

Walker recounted such cases before Robert Slaney's Health of Towns committee in 1840. He then met the Bishop of London ("no satisfactory conclusions could be arrived at"). He petitioned the home secretary, denouncing graveyards as "laboratories of malaria ... so many centres of infection, constantly giving off noxious effluvia". It was, he claimed, only the differences in locality, atmosphere and individual constitution that rendered such gases a "slow or energetic poison".

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Death in the city: the grisly secrets of dealing with Victorian London's dead

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As well as sewerage, another "waste removal" problem plagued London in the 19th century: the disposal of the dead. There was little dispute about the means. Burial was the norm; cremation a peculiar foreign custom. The difficulty lay in finding room for an ever-increasing number of corpses.

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In the 19th century, London was the capital of the largest empire the world had ever known - and it was infamously filthy. It had choking, sooty fogs; the Thames River was thick with human sewage; and the streets were covered with mud.

But according to Lee Jackson, author of Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth, mud was actually a euphemism. "It was essentially composed of horse dung," he tells Fresh Air's Sam Briger. "There were tens of thousands of working horses in London [with] inevitable consequences for the streets. And the Victorians never really found an effective way of removing that, unfortunately."

In fact, by the 1890s, there were approximately 300,000 horses and 1,000 tons of dung a day in London. What the Victorians did, Lee says, was employ boys ages 12 to 14 to dodge between the traffic and try to scoop up the excrement as soon as it hit the streets.

"It was an immense and impossible challenge," Lee says.

To the public health-minded Victorian, London presented an overwhelming reform challenge. But there wasn't change until the city took over.

"It takes decades for people to accept that the state perhaps has a role in how they manage their household, how they manage their rubbish, their toilet facilities even," Lee says. "The state basically does intervene and it is that idea of a central authority that is actively concerned - what the Victorians would've called 'municipal socialism.' ... That mission to improve people's lives on a very day-to-day basis was carried on throughout the 20th century."

Interview Highlights
On what it was like to walk around Victorian London
The first thing you'd notice if you stepped out onto the streets would be the mud that lined the carriageways, but of course it wasn't really mud.

The air itself was generally filled with soot and smoke. It was famously said of the sheep in Regent's Park - there were still grazing sheep in Regent's Park in the mid-Victorian period - that you could tell how long they'd been in the capital by how dirty their coats were. They [went] increasingly from white to black over a period of days.

If you were a respectable person, you had to wash your face and hands several times during the day to make sure that you looked half decent. ... You had the stench from blocked drains and cesspools below houses. It wasn't really a pleasant experience.
On the horse dung and urine on the streets

Urine, of course ... soaked the streets. There was an experiment in Piccadilly with wood paving in the midcentury and it was abandoned after a few weeks because the sheer smell of ammonia that was coming from the pavement was just impossible. Also the shopkeepers nearby said that this ammonia was actually discoloring their shop fronts as well.
On cesspools and the first water closets
This is the thing that's often forgotten: that London at the start of the 19th century, it was basically filled with these cesspools. There'd be brick chambers ... they'd be maybe 6 feet deep, about 4 [feet] wide and every house would have them. They'd be ideally in the back garden away from the house, but equally in central London and more crowded areas it was more common to have a cesspool in the basement. ... And above the cesspool would be where your household privy would be. And that was basically your sanitary facilities, for want of a better term.

That actually worked quite well for a little while, but then people got very interested in this new invention - the water closet. And it's often ignored that the water closets were initially connected to these cesspools, not the sewer system that existed in the start of the century - that was just for rainwater. So you get water closets coming in and they're connected to cesspools and they don't really fit because of the extra large volume of flushing water. You get these surges of waste and dump and smell, and people start getting very concerned about what's in their cesspools because of the stink that's rising from them. ...

The idea that this sort of stench is coming into the house, seeping through the house and possibly bringing in diseases like cholera or typhoid ... is actually one of the great driving forces of sanitary reform in the 19th century.

"The idea that this sort of stench is coming into the house, seeping through the house and possibly bringing in diseases like cholera or typhoid ... is actually one of the great driving forces of sanitary reform in the 19th century."
On how cesspools were built and emptied
Cesspools were built to be porous so the liquid part of the waste was meant to seep away into the ground. There was no knowledge of bacteriological contamination, although there was plenty of it happening. Nevertheless, you had this residue of solid matter left and it was removed by so-called "night soil men." This wasn't a full-time job for people; there were often dustmen or laborers or bricklayers who made a little extra money on the side and they would come in the middle of the night to your home. And it was by law in the night because the stench of venting a cesspool was considered too disturbing during the day. And they would unfortunately have to [climb] down into the pit, shovel out the muck and get it into a wicker basket, get it into a cart. And at the start of the century, that was actually reasonably productive labor because the cart could then be taken out to the countryside and the manure could be sold to farmers.
On the first public toilets
It's often said that the first public toilets were at the Great Exhibition, which was the first world expo held in Hyde Park [in 1851]. It had 6 million visitors in a matter of months and there were indeed public toilets set up in the exhibition. But there was a great debate after that closed as to whether London needed such facilities actually on the street.

It was tied up with notions of shame and respectability and it was particularly said that women would be just too embarrassed to enter a public toilet on the public street.
On personal hygiene for the lower class
There were a few parish pumps that you could freely use if you could get to them, but you have people cramped in tenement accommodations ... in London. And ... how many buckets of water, even if you had the buckets, could you carry up to, say, a fourth-floor tenement? ... If you were poor, your basic water supply - which would do for washing, for cooking, for cleaning, for laundry - often it was from a standpipe provided by your landlord. And that water supply would be turned on for something like two to three hours per week. There were literally crowds of people queuing and fighting at these standpipes in the slums of London. And if you wanted to wash, then you had virtually no options. So the poor working men would actually go anywhere where there was a river, a canal or a lake and strip off and try and bathe.
On how things improved
The Victorians did achieve something: They built the famous great sewer network of the mid-19th century. [It was] built by Joseph Bazalgette, a renowned civil engineer, and that did achieve a lot. It basically took away the possibility of wholesale cholera epidemics in the city, typhus and typhoid - they all were reduced. But basically it's only until the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century that you get a sort of an effective central authority for London that you actually start to see change.

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'Dirty Old London': A History Of The Victorians' Infamous Filth

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In the 1800s, the Thames River was thick with human sewage and the streets were covered with horse dung, the removal of which, according to Lee Jackson, presented an "impossible challenge."

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Health and hygiene in the 19th century

In a time when diseases like smallpox, cholera and TB were insatiable and continued to relapse in epidemical waves, Liza Picard explores how medical pioneers and health innovations shaped the landscape of medicine in the 19th century.

The Victorian Britain website is currently under review.

How long could you expect to live?

Middle class men might live, on average, to 45. The average lives of workmen and labourers spanned just half that time. Children were lucky to survive their fifth birthdays. (The current life expectancy is around 80, and rising.)

The miasma or 'bad air' theory

It was believed that bad smells caused disease. It was obvious; in poor districts, the air was foul and the death rate high. In the prosperous suburbs, no smells - therefore no disease.

Parliament was worried by the 'Great Stink' of 1858, when the Thames flowed with undiluted sewage, because the smell itself might kill the Members of Parliament in their debating chamber overlooking the river.

'Father Thames Introducing his Offspring to the Fair City of London' from Punch

Florence Nightingale believed in the miasma theory. The miracles she achieved in the Crimean War hospitals resulted from her insistence that bad smells must be eradicated by thorough cleaning.

Killer diseases

There were recurrent, terrible epidemics of cholera between 1832 and 1853. It took Dr John Snow years to persuade the establishment that cholera is a water-borne disease: nothing to do with bad smells.

Smallpox was endemic. From 1853 vaccination was compulsory. (Due to public opposition the law was repealed in 1909).

'Consumption' (tuberculosis) seemed to run in families. One after another, the girls would sicken, take to the sofa, and die. A light diet of jelly and port might comfort them, but their end was inescapable.

In the slums, prostitutes caught the sexually transmitted disease syphilis and infected their clients - who infected their wives. Again, there was no remedy, although mercury sometimes staved off the worst stages. From 1864 'known prostitutes' working near ports and garrisons, who were found to have STDs, could be forcibly detained and treated. Due to public objections the law was repealed after 10 years.

Few upper-class ladies breast-fed their children. The babies' immune systems would have benefited from their mother's milk. Victorian nurseries were plagued by childhood diseases - measles, mumps, diphtheria, scarlet fever, rubella - that are mostly, now, a nightmare of the past.

Victorian employers had no duty to safeguard the health of their employees. The floral wallpapers in prosperous parlours, and the brilliant leaves on fashionable hats, could kill the workers who had close contact with the arsenic in the green dye. (The French long suspected the British of poisoning Napoleon in his prison on St Helena, by decorating his bedroom with green-patterned wallpaper). There was arsenic everywhere in the home - in the bathroom, to remove superfluous hair, in the garden to kill rats, in the kitchen to kill flies. A desperate wife had the means to murder her husband easily to hand.

Contraception and childbirth

Victorian women might be almost continually pregnant, between marriage and menopause. Some contraceptive advice was available, and condoms could be bought, but only 'under the counter'. Coitus interruptus remained the principal method of family limitation.

Childbirth was risky and painful. There was a wide belief that labour pains were imposed by God because Eve had sinned in the Garden of Eden. It took Dr Snow - the same man who discovered the source of cholera - to alleviate labour pains by administering chloroform. When Queen Victoria and the daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury used it, anaesthesia had become respectable.

Mental illness

Treatment for mental illness or nervous disorders had changed little since medieval times. Those sufferers lower down the social scale were locked up in County Asylums. Private 'madhouses' were often profitable institutions. Women might be locked away there by their husbands if he disapproved of her behaviour. Such dramatic stories were the subjects of popular fiction such as The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

Hospitals

The Victorian medical scene was not bad at all. In London, St Thomas's, a medieval foundation, had to move to make way for a railway line; its new site was beside the Thames, where the air was now pure, due to Bazalgette's magnificent new drainage system. Nevertheless Florence Nightingale insisted on open balconies and airy wards, to counteract any hospital-generated miasma, and her designs influenced hospital architecture for decades, in Britain and the Empire.

Many hospitals were founded to research into, and care for sufferers from, specific diseases such as tuberculosis. Their titles were grand - the Royal National Hospital for Chest Diseases, for example - but since they were privately funded they frequently ran out of money.

The middle classes deplored the reliance on quacks and quack medicines by the poor: the middle classes could afford proper medical care; the poor could not. Street vendors, ready to run if necessary, sold patent medicines on a 'no cure, no pay' basis. Fashionable charlatans could make a good living from their wares. John St. John Long claimed to cure consumption by liniment and medicated vapours. Even an appearance in the Old Bailey on a charge of manslaughter did not put him off for long. He could easily afford the fine, out of an income of £13,000. He died aged 36 - of consumption. A German charlatan, Dr Bossey, entertained vast crowds in Covent Garden but decamped when heckled by someone he believed to be a dissatisfied patient. In fact the heckler was a parrot.

The popular press was full of advertisements for dubious remedies. Kaye's Worsdell's Pills were 'the best medicine which can be taken under all circumstances, as they require no restraint of diet or confinement during their use, and their timely assistance cures all complaints': family size box 4s 6d. James Morison's Universal Pill was compounded of aloes and cream of tartar; he died worth half a million pounds.

For a more specific approach, try Dr James's Fever Powder, which contained antimony and ammonia in toxic amounts. Anderson's Scots Pills for indigestion caused piles and chronic constipation. Steel's Aromatic Lozenges promised to 'repair the evils brought on by debauchery' (a veiled reference to syphilis) but resulted only in a painful and dangerous inflammation.

Dr Collis Browne's Chlorodine was marketed as a remedy for indigestion, but came in useful for almost anything, unsurprisingly since it contained a hefty dose of morphia, as well as kaolin for stomach pains. Morrison's Pills resulted in numerous deaths - and a fortune for the maker. Several 'remedies' for babies' wind, such as Godfrey's Cordial, contained opium, which certainly quietened querulous infants, but overdoses could be fatal, especially when combined with gin.

Self medication

Chloroform was useful in an attack of toothache. Or the sufferer could try morphia, or laudanum, another derivative of opium. They could all be bought from chemists, no questions asked.

Advances in medicine

Florence Nightingale changed nurses into highly trained professionals. The other branches of the medical profession, too, established examining and disciplinary bodies providing recognized qualifications. There were huge advances in medical knowledge. The death rate from post-operative shock and 'hospital gangrene' fell dramatically, now that operations were performed on an anaesthetized patient, in an operating theatre disinfected with carbolic, by a surgeon who had washed his hands in carbolic.

Liza Picard researches and writes about the history of London. She spent many years working in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray's Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford.

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Health and hygiene in the 19th century | The British Library

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By using this site, you agree we can set and use cookies. For more details of these cookies and how to disable them, see our cookie policy. Health and hygiene in the 19th century In a time when diseases like smallpox, cholera and TB were insatiable and continued to relapse in epidemical waves, Liza Picard explores how medical pioneers and health innovations shaped the landscape of medicine in the 19th century.

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Social conditions in the 19th-century port - Port communities - Port Cities

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As a child, according to author Claire Harmon, Robert Louis Stevenson "liked to be attended to as much as possible, especially by women."

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As a child, according to author Claire Harmon, Robert Louis Stevenson "liked to be attended to as much as possible, especially by women." Harmon herself attends to him very well in this new biography, which is everything a literary biography ought to be.

Harmon has done an immense amount of research for "Myself & the Other Fellow" - reading, for instance, the notes Graham Balfour prepared for the first, official biography of Stevenson - but the research hasn't overwhelmed her, and she doesn't allow it to overwhelm the reader. She makes the hard choices every good biographer must to devise a coherent narrative portrait. This is Stevenson as Harmon sees him, and her view seems as authentic, and certainly as vivid, as John Singer Sargent's famous portrait of the author striding across the drawing room of his house in Bournemouth.

"Myself & the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson"

by Claire Harmon
HarperCollins, 503 pp., $29.95

Sargent highlighted two of Stevenson's best-known characteristics: his animation and his penetrating gaze. Harry Jay Moors, the American trader who befriended Stevenson when the writer moved to Samoa, noted both at their first meeting: "He could not stand still. When I took him into my house, he walked about the room, plying me with questions, one after another, darting up and down."

As for Stevenson's gaze, Moors wrote that "I was struck at once by his keen, inquiring eyes, brown in colour they were strangely bright, and seemed to penetrate you like the eyes of a mesmerist."

For her part, Harmon highlights Stevenson's "doubleness." The ambidextrous author of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" recalled in a letter to psychical researcher F.W.H. Myers how, when sick as a child, he had often been aware of having "two consciousnesses." He called these "Myself" and "the other fellow." The former was his everyday, common-sense self, the latter his irrational, absurd "other" self.

What interested Stevenson about this, Harmon says, was "his awareness of their coexistence." Duality certainly figures in his fiction, not just in Jekyll and Hyde, but also in Long John Silver's easy shift from charm to menace, and of course in the relentless conflict of the Durie brothers in "The Master of Ballantrae."

Doubleness also figured in Stevenson's life. The child of privilege and Presbyterian convention was a natural bohemian, the spinner of romances who went to live in the South Seas - like the painter Gauguin - and wrote realistically and unsentimentally about the corruption and squalor he found there.

Then there is the question of his sexuality. Harmon says there is no evidence of Stevenson's ever having had a homosexual experience, while there's plenty of evidence of his involvement with female prostitutes. He seems to have been especially attracted to older women. The one he married, Fanny Osbourne, was a married mother when he fell in love with her, and he crossed the Atlantic and the North American continent to win her away from her husband.

Yet his manner and dress were notably fey, and he was extremely attractive to men. Scholar Andrew Lang, who was gay, said that Stevenson "possessed, more than any man I ever met, the power of making other men fall in love with him." Harmon surmises that Stevenson "can't have been unaware of the homoerotic forcefield he generated" and concludes that "he rather enjoyed it," given that he was "a man with an insatiable appetite for attention and affection."

Harmon does not regard, as Frank McGlynn did in his 1995 biography, Stevenson's wife as a villain. Though his friends didn't like her - nor she them - until Fanny's increasing mental and emotional instability made living with her well-nigh unbearable, the two seem to have genuinely loved each other, and she seems to have had a salutary effect on his creativity.

And what about that creativity? To what extent does Stevenson the writer merit our attention? Harmon is level-headed in her appraisal of his work. He may have been overpraised during his lifetime but has certainly been underrated since.

Simply put, the power of his imagination can hardly be gainsaid. As Harmon points out, Long John Silver is "a fictional character far more real to most people now than any historical pirate." And, she notes, "we all understand what 'Jekyll-and-Hyde' signifies." Most of all, Harmon provides evidence that Stevenson was continuing to grow as a writer when he died of a stroke at 44. His letters from this period, she notes, "are some of the most extraordinary ever written, a one-way ticket into his mind."

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Robert Louis Stevenson's life with the "Other Fellow"

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As a child, according to author Claire Harmon, Robert Louis Stevenson "liked to be attended to as much as possible, especially by women." Share story As a child, according to author Claire Harmon, Robert Louis Stevenson "liked to be attended to as much as possible, especially by women."

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Myself & The Other Fellow is a new biography of Robert Louis Stevenson. His works are well known, but the author's own story may surprise readers. Biographer Claire Harman finds a complex, brilliant and troubled man.

SHEILAH KAST, host:

Many of us first met Robert Louis Stevenson when we were children, maybe home from school with sniffles in bed with "A Child's Garden of Verses," or perhaps discovering "Treasure Island" or investigating "Kidnapped" or exploring the split personality of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." For all the swashbuckling adventurers and scary characters he brought to life, Robert Louis Stevenson was physically frail, often suffering from respiratory problems. He died young at 44 years old, 101 years ago this week. He also struggled with writer's block and some of his best-loved works were nearly literary accidents. Claire Harman has written the story of one of the English language's greatest storytellers. It's "Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson." When Claire Harman joined us from NPR's New York bureau, I asked her to explain the title, "Myself and the other Fellow."

Ms. CLAIRE HARMAN ("Myself and the Other Fellow"): This is a phrase that Stevenson used to describe two states of consciousness that he experienced, in particular, when he was having a fever one time, you know, to do with his lung problems and his illness. And he wrote to a friend that when he was in a high fever, he felt that his mind split off into `myself' and what he called `the other fellow.' `Myself' was the rational side, and `the other fellow' was the sort of dark side, the creative, difficult, seething side of his subconscious. And he loved it. He loved the fact that he had these simultaneous and slightly conflicting states of mind going on. And obviously, he used it very much in his work. And it animated a lot of his ideas. You know, that you could be two people at the same time.

KAST: Is that where "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" came from?

Ms. HARMAN: Yes, that duality and the idea of the double self is all through Stevenson's work. I mean, he was really obsessed with the notion that there's really no part of the self that you can contain within one individual.

KAST: Tell us about his health. It seems like nearly everyone in your book is a hypochondriac.

Ms. HARMAN: Yes. Yes, they are. Well, Stevenson was an only child and his parents were both incredibly fussy about his well-being and, you know, he was always being wrapped up in shawls and given coffee in the middle of the night, which was--his nurse thought was a good cure for insomnia.

KAST: That's odd.

Ms. HARMAN: Yes. And you know, one--they didn't have the windows open because they didn't want to have any nasty drafts. So he was actually brought up in quite a neurotic and, also, fairly unhealthy environment. And he was a hypochondriac himself. It would have been hard to escape that. You know, he was plagued by all sorts of ailments. It's hard to tell now what was really the problem with him, whether it was, you know, a mixture of psychosomatic things plus frail lungs, which he clearly did have a lung problem. But clearly, he was very thin and, you know, he didn't have any extra energy. So he'd have these flare-ups of excitement and rather manic periods, followed by periods of collapse when he'd just have to go to bed and rest. But he and his wife and his parents were all invested in the project of Stevenson being ill. That was their joint project.

KAST: Well, how did that focus shape who he was and what and how he wrote?

Ms. HARMAN: Very much, because he wrote in a way that shows a lot of impatience. You know, he wanted to get things done. He wanted to write fairly short forms, like novellas, short stories, short novels. He didn't feel he had any staying power because he felt that if there was any protracted physical effort to be made when he was writing, you know, illness could intervene and interrupt that. So there's a sort of quick turnover element in his work, and that sometimes is an advantage and it makes it very vivid and very adrenaline fueled. But sometimes you get a feeling with his work that he has just somehow lost interest or, you know, the flame has just lowered.

KAST: One of Stevenson's best-loved books, "Treasure Island," started as an entertainment for his stepson, Sam, when he drew him a map. Correct?

Ms. HARMAN: Yes, that's right. Yeah.

KAST: And then?

Ms. HARMAN: Well, they were on a wet holiday in Scotland and most holidays in Scotland are wet holidays, and they got stuck indoors with nothing to do. And Sam, who was 12 years old at the time, had a paint box and some paper. And Stevenson, having painted a map of an island, then became absolutely entranced with his own picture. And, you know, his imagination just flooded into this picture of an island and he--and to him it suggested a whole story about pirates and adventure and the period which he loved, which was the, you know, early to mid-18th century. Everything seemed to fall into place, and having painted the painting, he then immediately set about writing the first chapter of "Treasure Island." And he wrote a chapter a day while the rain kept going. If the weather had been better that August in Scotland he might well never have written the story.

KAST: Stevenson received literary praise early in his career, but then the critics, even his friends, seemed to feel he hadn't delivered on his early promise. Is he...

Ms. HARMAN: Yeah. I mean, aren't friends awful sometimes? Stevenson, he had this, you know, early career that was to do with formal prose and a kind of exquisite prose style, and his friends were encouraging him to carry on like that. And when books like "Treasure Island," which was a best-seller, and then "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"--when those books came out, his friends lamented the fact. They thought he was going down market. And Stevenson was quite irritated with them because, clearly, he could do both those things. He had a lot of different works inside him and he didn't want to constrain himself. But there was a kind of jealousy and possessiveness that made some of the people in his circle just not receive those other works very well.

KAST: Is he more appreciated today?

Ms. HARMAN: No, I think he was very much appreciated in his own day, and he has had a great deal of staying power. With writers of classic texts, what always happens is that the text, like "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Treasure Island," to some extent "Kidnapped" and "A Child's Garden of Verses," these books detach from the author, so we now know them as great classic books and not everyone will associate them with the author, with Robert Louis Stevenson. But I think and hope that he's getting to be properly appreciated now.

KAST: Claire Harman's new book is "Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson," published by Harper Collins. She joined us from New York. Thanks.

Ms. HARMAN: Thank you.

KAST: You are listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.

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Robert Louis Stevenson's Split Personality

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Myself & The Other Fellow is a new biography of Robert Louis Stevenson. His works are well known, but the author's own story may surprise readers. Biographer Claire Harman finds a complex, brilliant and troubled man.

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The National Endowment for the Humanities

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Treasure Island Author Robert Louis Stevenson Was a Sickly Man with a Robus

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You may know him as one of literature's most famous writers. Or for his timeless classics Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But did you know Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson's American wife Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne was a cigarette-rolling, pistol-owning firecracker of a woman? My new book, Under the Wide and Starry Sky, ranges from the artists' colonies of Europe and the mining camps of Nevada to the mountains of Switzerland and the shores of Polynesia. It explores the Stevensons's unusual relationship and the ways in which they changed the literary and artistic landscape around them. Read on for even more revealing facts about writing legend Robert Louis Stevenson!
He invented the sleeping bag.
An enthusiastic traveler, Stevenson enjoyed sleeping under the stars. In 1878, the Scottish writer designed a six-foot square sleeping sack, made of "green waterproof cart-cloth without and blue sheep's fur within" for a 12-day hike through a mountainous region of southern France. He was nursing a broken heart, for the American woman he loved had left him. By writing a travel narrative, he hoped to earn enough money to pursue her and persuade her to marry him. The adventure and the sleeping bag are memorialized in his book, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.
He almost died on a goat ranch in Monterey, California.
Seeking the hand of Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne, who was married with children when he'd first met her at a French artists' resort three years earlier, Stevenson set out in 1879 for America, crossing the Atlantic in steerage conditions, then traveling by emigrant train from New Jersey to California. He had been bedridden with lung illness during long periods in his life, but the grueling journey to Monterey, where Fanny was staying, nearly killed him. Emaciated, lacking money for shelter, and rebuffed once again by an uncertain Fanny, Stevenson rode out into the countryside near Monterey to camp. A goat farmer found him unconscious the next day, and carried him back to his family's cabin where he nursed the severely ill writer for three weeks.
He married an Indiana woman 10 years his senior.
Fanny Osbourne was 40 by the time she divorced her philandering husband and wed Stevenson. She was not the sort of bride the writer's upper crust parents had imagined for him. Fanny carried a pistol, rolled her own cigarettes, and had lived in Nevada mining camps with her first husband. But Louis, as he was called by friends and family, loved her for her beauty, adventurous spirit, and strong character traits, not the least of which was grit. Nearly broke and seeking clean air and sunshine for Louis's lungs, they spent their honeymoon in an abandoned mining shack on Mt. St. Helena in Napa.
He used a pseudonym when Treasure Island was first published.
Stevenson's romantic pirate novel began as a rainy day amusement to entertain Fanny's 12-year-old son, Lloyd Osbourne, while the family was vacationing in Scotland in 1881. RLS drew a map of an island, and in short order imagined the characters of Long John Silver and Billy Bones. Soon he was publishing chapters of the story under the nom-de-plume of Captain George North in a children's periodical called "Young Folks." The pseudonym may have been an attempt to give the impression the author was a salty sea captain. When the material was published as a book, Stevenson's proper name was on the cover.
He wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in six days while confined to bed.
Three days, actually, using pen and ink pot. According to Lloyd Osbourne, however, RLS tossed the manuscript--some 30,000 words-- into the fireplace when Fanny objected that the story's allegory was not evident enough. In the next three days, he wrote a second draft of the story, which is the version we know today. While Treasure Island brought him notice, Jekyll and Hyde brought him fame. By the time of his death at age 44 in 1894, Stevenson was a towering literary figure. His output included some 13 novels, as well as volumes of essays and short stories, plays, poetry, and music.
He gave away his birthday to a 12-year-old girl.
While Stevenson lived in Samoa, he met the daughter of the country's U.S. Commissioner, Annie Ide. Distraught over having to share her birthday with a major holiday - Christmas - Annie received a surprise from the witty author; Stevenson wrote a detailed "legal" letter reassigning his birthday to the young girl:

I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author of The Master of Ballantrae and Moral Emblems, stuck civil engineer, sole owner and patentee of the Palace and Plantation known as Vailima in the island of Upolu, Samoa, a British Subject, being in sound mind and pretty well I thank you in body:
...

Have transferred, and do hereby transfer to the said A. H. Ide, All and Whole of my rights and privileges in the 13th day of November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth, the birthday of the said A. H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise and enjoy the same in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiment, eating of rich meats and receipt of gifts, compliments and copies of verse, according to the manner of our ancestors;
He is buried on a mountaintop in Samoa.
Having lived a life together as adventurous as those of RLS's most romantic characters, the Stevensons built a home called Vailima near Mt. Vaea in Samoa. When Stevenson died in 1894, his body was carried to the top of the mountain for burial. On his tombstone is carved the poem he began in 1879 when he was crossing America on the emigrant train and feared he might be dying. It is called "Requiem."

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

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7 Things You Definitely Didn't Know About Robert Louis Stevenson

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You may know him as one of literature's most famous writers. Or for his timeless classics Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But did you know Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson's American wife Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne was a cigarette-rolling, pistol-owning firecracker of a woman?

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Fanny Stevenson burned it after dismissing it to a friend as "a quire full of utter nonsense". She said - of what became the world's most admired and profound horror story - "He said it was his greatest work. I shall burn it after I show it to you".

Stevenson, an invalid almost deranged by tuberculosis and the effects of medicinal cocaine, had to spend the next three days feverishly rewriting and redrafting the 30,000-word story by hand.

Within weeks, the new version of his pioneering novel about split personality was in print. Despite Fanny's view, it was an instant bestseller. Sermons were preached on it in thousands of churches, including St Paul's cathedral, London. It was pirated in the US and in translation.

It rescued the Stevensons from acute debt. For the first time, the couple had enough money to live comfortably.

Some 115 years later, Fanny's deed has been disclosed in a two-page letter on pages torn from a notebook. It was written by her in 1885 to Stevenson's close friend and fellow poet WE Henley.

Henley, who was one-legged, was the model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island. He is still known for the lines: "I am the master of my fate,/I am the captain of my soul".

The letter is expected to fetch some £1,500 at auction at Phillips in London on November 17. Yesterday, Liz Merry head of Phillips's book department, said the writer's wife apparently threw the manuscript on the fire because "she considered Dr Jekyll and the duality of man rather distasteful.

"It's my belief that she thought Dr Jekyll, which was partly based on a dream, was not worthy of him. She was also uneasy because he was writing it for a "shilling shocker" series of novels. It is ironic that it turned out to be one of his most successful books."

But other sources believe Fanny acted in a spirit of literary criticism rather than artistic vandalism. One biographer says she felt the first draft did not sufficiently bring out the theme of allegory which was to make the story so compelling to psychologists like Sigmund Freud.

Despite the Hollywood films which have been based on it, Stevenson's atmospheric novel contains no sex and little violence, though these are strongly implied.

But what is clear is that Fanny, with creditors at their door, was in despair about her sick husband's ability to produce publishable work.

In an earlier letter, she wrote: "Louis is possessed of a story that he will try to work at. To stop him seems to annoy him to such a degree that I am letting him alone as the better alternative; but I fear it will only be energy wasted - as all his late work has been."

The Scots author was recovering at the time from a haemorrhage and from the death of a close friend. He said he he wrote out of hunger and the need to survive "a few years more" to support his family.

The germ of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde came to him in a cocaine-induced nightmare in their Bournemouth home. His screams aroused Fanny, who indignantly woke him. "Why did you wake me?" he said. "I was dreaming a fine bogey tale."

Dawn found him writing frantically to capture and elaborate the dream on paper. He wrote the first draft in three days at an extraordinary rate of 10,000 words a day. Stephen King, the most modern prolific horror author, is content if he can achieve 1,000 words a day.

But scholars knew before yesterday that Fanny disliked the first draft. Before her letter was discovered, the Stevenson scholar, Alanna Knight, wrote: "Angrily, Stevenson threw it on the fire. For the next three days the family walked on tiptoe glimpsing him sitting up in bed, surrounded by written and torn-up pages". Together, the first and final drafts took him a total of six days.

Fanny wrote afterwards: "That an invalid in my husband's condition performed the manual labour alone seems incredible. He was suffering from continual haemorrhages and hardly allowed to speak, his conversation carried on by means of a slate and pencil."

Stevenson himself told a critic dourly: "The wheels of Byles the Butcher [a joking reference to his creditors, taken from George Eliot's novel Middlemarch] drive exceedingly swiftly."

Of his story, with its haunted moral that "man is not truly one, but truly two", he wrote to a friend: "I send you herewith a Gothic gnome, interesting I think, and he came out of a deep mine, where he guards the fountain of tears."
Gone forever, lost treasures
Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890)

The Victorian explorer and Orientalist, was known as an expert on every scholarly subject "including pornography" - he translated the Kama Sutra and, from rare Arabic manuscripts, The Perfumed Garden.

His more explicit writings were burned by his widow, Isobel, after his death.

Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

The publicly reticent poet, in one of the greatest losses to 20th century biography, left a will asking his companion, Monica Jones, to burn all of his personal diaries after his death in 1985. However, his indiscreet letters have survived

Camille Claudel (1864-1943)

The admired sculptor was the mistress of Auguste Rodin for 15 years. Her feelings of injustice at his hands led her frequently to destroy all the work in her studio. Taken by force to an asylum in 1913, where she died

Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)

The Russian dramatist and novelist fell victim to the "spiritual sadism" of an extreme Moscow priest, Father Matyev Konstantinovsky.

Ten days before Gogol's death in 1852, while mentally unbalanced, he burned the final volume of his masterpiece, Dead Souls, at the priest's order

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

The poet and painter was so distressed by the suicide of his wife Elizabeth Siddal from an overdose of laudanum in 1862 that he buried all his manuscripts with her.

Later he changed his mind and had her body exhumed to recover them. He justified this volte face by telling a friend, "Art was the only thing for which she felt very seriously"
Topics

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The story of Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde and Fanny, the angry wife who burned the first draft

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Fanny Stevenson burned it after dismissing it to a friend as "a quire full of utter nonsense". She said - of what became the world's most admired and profound horror story - "He said it was his greatest work. I shall burn it after I show it to you".

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Read about 'On the Different Forms of Insanity' on the British Library's Discovering Literature website.

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HE was the controversial American dentist who pioneered the use of laughing gas as an anaesthetic, went mad and died in prison ...

but now, more than a century and a half after his tragic death, fellow medics are trying to work out whether Horace Wells was the real life inspiration behind Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Extensive research is now underway to try to pinpoint if Wells - who was recognised after his death as one of the founding fathers of anaesthetics - was immortalised in Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

The intriguing idea that Wells could have provided the inspiration for the famous story, which explores the duality of human existence, has been discussed in a paper published in the Journal of Anesthesia (corr) History. It notes this link is often referred to in historical information about Wells' gravesite in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Connecticut, as well as being mused upon by authors and academics in the US.

The authors of the paper say they want to establish if there was a literacy legacy marking the life of Wells, who suffered a dramatic descent from respectable dentist into drugs, violence, madness and ruin.

The highlight of Wells' career was discovering that nitrous oxide - also known as laughing gas - was effective in relieving pain. But in 1845 a demonstration to prove this while performing a tooth extraction on a medical student ended in accusations it was a hoax after the patient cried out - even though the student later admitted he had felt no pain.

The incident was a huge blow to Wells' career, which quickly spiralled downwards. He began abusing ether and chloroform and in 1848, while under the influence of drugs, he was arrested after splashing acid on two prostitutes. Wells then committed suicide while in New York's infamous Tombs Prison by slashing an artery in his groin - after inhaling chloroform for pain relief.

The fall from grace of the respected dentist and his turning to drugs could be interpreted as his "own version of Mr Hyde", the paper says. It also notes that Wells, like Hyde, only found absolution of their "evil selves" in death.

However after scrutinising evidence such as original documents from Stevenson and contemporary newspaper reports from the author's time, the medics have concluded there is insufficient evidence to establish any definite relationship between Wells and Stevenson.

The paper notes that Stevenson did have the experience of having his teeth removed in San Francisco while under anaesthesia, but added: "Other scant evidence forms rather tenuous, indirect speculations that Wells held influence over Stevenson, based on the convenient compatibility with the latter's ideologies and the former's life history.

"Without the essential validity of verified evidence, any analysis inevitably cannot prove a link."

The paper also notes: "As the dentist died two years before the author's birth, it is unlikely that Stevenson came across any newspaper or scientific article in Britain."

The study was carried out by Dr Sukumar Desai, associate professor of anaesthesia at Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, USA and Rini Vyas, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Leeds.

Vyas said the project had taken several months to complete and had included examination of original documents from Robert Louis Stevenson and the Stevenson family, held in the special collections at Leeds University, as well as the university's archives of contemporary newspapers from Stevenson's time.

She said: "Horace Wells was the controversial founding father of anaesthesia, meaning that his legacy has been subject to considerable speculation at various points in history.

"By exploring claims that Stevenson's story of Jekyll and Hyde was inspired by Wells, we hoped to find the truth about whether part of Wells' legacy is truly embedded in literary form."

But the authors concluded: "All claims to any relationship between Wells and the novel come from the US and none of them are backed by evidence.

"In the absence of evidence supporting a relationship between the behaviour exhibited by Wells during his final days and any inspiration that Stevenson might have derived from it, we conclude that there is insufficient evidence to suggest any relationship between them."

The contribution of Wells to the discovery of anaesthesia was recognised after his death by the medical community and his son commissioned a sculpture as a memorial to him at Cedar Hill Cemetery.

Professor Richard Drury, of the Robert Louis Stevenson website, said he believed it was unlikely there was any link between Wells and Stevenson's literary creation.

"There's no evidence that Stevenson knew about the case: there were other double-life and double-personality cases that he knew of as well as a whole literary tradition of doubles," he added.

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Was America's mad dentist the real life Dr Jekyll?

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HE was the controversial American dentist who pioneered the use of laughing gas as an anaesthetic, went mad and died in prison ... but now, more than a century and a half after his tragic death, fellow medics are trying to work out whether Horace Wells was the real life inspiration behind Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

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ON THE NIGHT of January 30, 1873, in his home at 17 Heriot Row in Edinburgh, Scotland, Robert Louis Stevenson told his parents that he no longer believed in God. He'd grown tired of pretending to be something he was not ("am I to live my whole life as one falsehood?"). His father, a strict Calvinist who always managed to justify his beliefs, was, for once, at a complete loss. His reply to Stevenson was a mental bomb of shame: "You have rendered my whole life a failure." His kind, yet distant mother's reply took away whatever stability had remained in the home: "This is the heaviest affliction that has ever befallen me."

Stevenson went to his room and wrote his friend Charles Baxter. In the letter, Stevenson could only process the moment through a thick black sarcasm: "O Lord, what a pleasant thing it is to have just damned the happiness of (probably) the only two people who care a damn about you in the world." Two paragraphs later, that sarcasm fell into darkness: "What is my life to be, at this rate...what the devil am I to do?"

It was a question Stevenson had struggled with for years as he attempted to live up to his father's expectations. He spent his first years at the University of Edinburgh as a "lean, ugly, idle, unpopular" and unmotivated student. His father wanted him to go into engineering, but the spell of ink had entranced Stevenson enough that he told his father that he could not continue down that path. At the age of twenty, Stevenson changed tracks and attempted to be a lawyer-wishing to at least slightly please his father by settling into a somewhat stable profession.

His time studying law is quickly explained in a comment by a fellow law student: "We did not look for Stevenson at law lectures, except when the weather was bad." At the age of twenty-two, one particular highlight for Stevenson was being a member of the Speculative Society, where he would debate life's meanings with friends, often standing and pacing, his wiry frame never at rest. From out of this club came the inspiration to start another "edgier" group, called L.J.R., which stood for Liberty, Justice and Reverence. Stevenson and his cousin Bob started the group in the hopes of, in a manner of speaking, sticking it to the man. Their first rule was simple: disregard everything taught to you by your parents. When Stevenson's father discovered the L.J.R. manifesto, he demanded that his son fess up about his beliefs, which he did on that January night, and his home broke asunder.

For the next few months, Stevenson lived in a perpetual state of tension, or, as he put it: "It is always a picnic on a volcano." The constant tension meant daily glances of disappointment and the nagging fear that he had lost the unconditional love of his parents. His health deteriorated, and he fell into depression, often lying in his bed for days. In July, six months after the event, Stevenson wrote a melancholic, borderline fatalistic letter to Elizabeth Crosby. In the letter, he describes his days:

I rise at half past six in the morning and walk into town alone before nine...I go to classes, or oftener stay away from them and sit smoking in the Public Princes Street Gardens, where one sees a great deal of easy life in shirt-sleeves, shop girls and shopmen...vague wandering old men...[I] eat a very good dinner, smoke very placidly in the garden, read or write, and go early to bed. A life of beautiful regularity, is it not?

It was, but it wasn't. In an attempt to fight against his dour mood and illness, Stevenson traveled to Suffolk to visit a cousin. At that point in time, Stevenson would have traveled to a manure farm, if they existed, his body and mind a pulped shipwreck. He needed friends, he needed heroes, he needed parents, and he needed support. He found the latter in a thirty-four-year-old woman named Frances Sitwell-his first love, one could say. Sitwell introduced Stevenson to an art critic at the time named Sidney Colvin.

After the first meeting, Colvin was in awe, describing Stevenson as a "youngster, already to have lived and seen and felt...more than others do in a lifetime."

Though Colvin would eventually assist Stevenson with publishing connections, it was Sitwell who pulled Stevenson through those storm-ridden months of family angst. Although he poured his heart out to her letter after letter, Sitwell, who had willed a separation from her philandering husband, remained just distant enough not to get attached. Still, like a man standing on the edge of a mountain, arms out, pleading, for months Stevenson wrote her passages like this:

Your sympathy is the wind in my sails. You must live to help me and I must do honor to your help...[people] will wish that they could have lived where they could have known you, and the others will set you before them as a model.

Sitwell loved the attention, but she could not reciprocate. In a symbolic way, she was the only member in the audience of a play titled Stevenson. The final lines of that imaginary play would have no doubt been what Stevenson wrote to her later, stuck inside the pit of unrequited love:

I wish to God I did not love you so much; but it's as well for my best interest as I know well enough. And it ought to be nice for you; for you need not fear any bother from this child except petulant moments. I am good now: I am, am I not?

Whether it was the mental attrition his father put him through, the unrequited love he experienced for Sitwell, or the aimlessness of his career path, near the end of his twenty-second year, Stevenson trudged into the doctor's office at 5'10" and around 118 pounds-a human beanpole. The doctor's diagnosis was simple and true: Stevenson was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The doctor recommended, like many did during this day and age, a long trip alone. Stevenson traveled to Mentone, on the south coast of France, and arrived there a day before his twenty-third birthday.

While at a hotel filled with other distressed outcasts, he smoked opium and led "the life of a vegetable...I eat, I sleep, I sit in the sun." Though that sounds as if the vacation was without thrill, the absolute freedom he enjoyed, separate from all, was a delight he expressed to Sitwell: "I nearly danced again." And then, writing on his birthday, "I have here the nicest room in Mentone."

Sitwell failed to send a letter on his birthday, while Stevenson was going through a process that would help him disconnect from the drudgeries of his dependent lifestyle. Over time and distance, he would place her in the healthier role of a friend, and would begin to think of his life more as an individual, rather than a young man hoping to please his parents. Stevenson was never deeply concerned about religion-surviving was more his problem. By telling his parents he no longer believed in what they believed, he was merely trying to establish his own identity, and, as many of us know, that action will always be initially painful.

Personally, I find Stevenson's twenty-second year to be the most admirable in a letter he wrote to Frances Sitwell on September 15, 1873. He'd been battling his domestic war for months, had been denied many times physically by her, and he had just been weighed by a doctor and shown how the claws of stress had scratched him to the edge of his life. Through it all, Stevenson found the courage to write these lines: "Does it not seem surprising that I can keep the lamp alight, through all this gusty weather, in so frail a lantern? And yet it burns cheerily."

Stevenson would go on to become a literary star admired by the likes of Jorge Luis Borges, Marcel Proust, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, and Vladimir Nabokov. Stevenson wrote a total of twelve novels, including Treasure Island (1881) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), numerous short story collections, four books of poetry, and a variety of travel essays. It was a career many parents would have accepted.

Published in the September / October 2015 Humanist
Patrick Parr writes for The Humanist and The Japan Times, among other outlets. His biography about Martin Luther King Jr.'s young adult years will appear in early 2018. www.patrickparr.com

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Robert Louis Stevenson Says No to Religion - TheHumanist.com

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ON THE NIGHT of January 30, 1873, in his home at 17 Heriot Row in Edinburgh, Scotland, Robert Louis Stevenson told his parents that he no longer believed in God. He'd grown tired of pretending to be something he was not ("am I to live my whole life as one falsehood?").

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Beset for much of his life by ill health, it would have been excusable if Robert Louis Stevenson had retreated into imagination and lived his days in story and poem. He chose another route, travelling the Cévennes accompanied by a donkey, living in an abandoned mine in California with a divorcee 10 years older than him, and settling eventually with her in Samoa, where the locals christened him "Tusitala", the teller of tales.

Stevenson had been born into smothering conformity. The rationalism and propriety of Edinburgh's New Town were not to his liking, and he did not want to enter the family business of lighthouse engineer. Having qualified as a lawyer, he found his true self in writing, and proved a master of diverse forms such as poetry for children ( A Child's Garden of Verses), adventure stories for all ages ( Treasure Island, Kidnapped) and chilling psychological horror ( Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde). He trusted to reveries, saying "brownies" (spirits) had brought Jekyll and Hyde to him in a dream - albeit a dream affected by the experimental medication he was on at the time.

His most famous book owes a debt to a real-life Edinburgh character, William Brodie, who was gentleman by day and miscreant by night. The young Stevenson knew that a wardrobe in his bedroom had been crafted by Brodie. Bed-bound by childhood ailments, he had also peered down into the gardens below, imagining seas and islands and mysteries to be unravelled.

As a student in Edinburgh, my interest in Stevenson took me to Jekyll and Hyde, and from there to a central question: what makes us do bad things to one another, century after century? Crime fiction seemed the best means to attempt an answer.

Stevenson remains a tantalising writer, and his last, unfinished novel, Weir of Hermiston, may have proved his best - if only he had lived to see it through. Rebel, adventurer, a restless spirit who used both travel and the imagination as a prophylactic against pain, he was a tortured artist whose prose remains pure, vibrant and healing.

* This article was amended on 11 June to remove a rogue 'The' from the title of Weir of Hermiston.
Topics

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My hero: Robert Louis Stevenson by Ian Rankin

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Beset for much of his life by ill health, it would have been excusable if Robert Louis Stevenson had retreated into imagination and lived his days in story and poem.

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From Romantic poetry to Gothic horror, from depictions of poverty and industrialisation to portrayals of the middle classes, and from crime fiction to fin de siècle decadence: the literary works of the Romantic and Victorian periods offer a wealth of topics to explore.

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from depictions of poverty and industrialisation to portrayals of the middle classes

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and from crime fiction to fin de siècle decadence: the literary works of the romantic and victorian periods

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and the contexts in which they were written

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From Romantic poetry to Gothic horror, from depictions of poverty and industrialisation to portrayals of the middle classes, and from crime fiction to fin de siècle decadence: the literary works of the Romantic and Victorian periods offer a wealth of topics to explore.

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As is quite evident from the title the kind of literature that evolved during the reign of Queen Victoria is famously known as the Victorian era literature.

The literature of the Victorian age (1837-1901) entered a new period after the romantic revival. The literature of this era was preceded by romanticism and was followed by modernism or realism. Hence, it can also be called a fusion of romantic and realist style of writing. Though the Victorian Age produced two great poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning, the age is also remarkable for the excellence of its prose.

Characteristics of Victorian novels

Victorian novels tend to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in which hard work, perseverance, love and luck win out in the end. They were usually inclined towards being of improving nature with a central moral lesson at heart. While this formula was the basis for much of earlier Victorian fiction, the situation became more complex as the century progressed.

Characteristics of Victorian poetry

Victorian Poetry was also indifferent from the already stated style. Much of the work of the time is seen as a bridge between the romantic era and the modernist poetry of the next century. Alfred Lord Tennyson held the poet laureateship for over forty years. The husband and wife poetry team of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning conducted their love affair through verse and produced many tender and passionate poems.

The reclaiming of the past was a major part of Victorian literature and was to be found in both classical literature and also the medieval literature of England. The Victorians loved the heroic, chivalrous stories of knights of old and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly behaviour and impress it upon the people both at home and in the wider empire.

In dramatic, farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas, and comic operas competed with Shakespeare productions and serious drama by the likes of James Planche' and Thomas William Robertson.

The discoveries of science seem to reflect considerable and particular effects upon the literature of the age. The Victorians had a mission to describe and classify the entire natural world. Much of this writing was not regarded as literature but one book, in particular, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, remains famous. The theory of evolution contained within the work shook many of the ideas the Victorians had about themselves. Although it took a long time to be widely accepted, completely changed following thoughts and literature.

The old Gothic tales that came out of the late 19th century are the first examples of the genre of fantastic fiction. These tales often centred on larger-than-life characters such as Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective of the times, Barry Lee, big time gang leader, Sexton Blake, Phileas Fogg, and other fictional characters of the era, such as Dracula, Edward Hyde.

Common themes in Victorian Literature

If one studies possibly, all the great writers of this period, you will mark three general characteristics, Firstly, literature in the Victorian age tended to come face to face with realism. This reflected more on practical problems and interests. It becomes a powerful instrument for human progress. Secondly, the Victorian literature seems to deviate from the strict principle of "art for art's sake" and asserts its moral purpose.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Ruskin Bond - all were the teachers of England with the faith in their moral message to instruct the world. Thirdly, this was more like the age of pessimism and confusion. The influence of science was strongly felt here. Alfred Lord Tennyson's some immature works seem to hold doubtful and despairing stains but his In Memoriam comes out as a hope after despair. Although characterized as practical and materialistic, the literature of the Victorian age portrays a completely ideal life. It was an idealistic age where the great ideals like truth, justice, love, brotherhood were emphasized by poets, essayists and novelists of the age.

Influence of Victorian Literature

The persistent popular embrace of Victorian literature has had a profound influence on modern literature and media. Writers such as Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters still sell robustly on most book resellers' lists and are frequently adapted into films and television productions, both directly and in modernized retellings. In addition, many modern novels such as A Great and Terrible Beauty demonstrate that the intricate cultural mores of the Victorian era find a home in the modern cultural psyche.

Famous Victorian novelists and poets

Significant Victorian novelists and poets include: Matthew Arnold, the Bronte sisters, Christina Rossetti, Joseph Conrad, Robert Browning, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot, George Meredith, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Gissing, Richard Jefferies, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Philip Meadows Taylor, Alfred Lord Tennyson biography, William Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, George MacDonald, G.M. Hopkins, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll.

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Characteristics of Victorian era literature, novels and poetry

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As is quite evident from the title the kind of literature that evolved during the reign of Queen Victoria is famously known as the Victorian era literature. The literature of the Victorian age (1837-1901) entered a new period after the romantic revival. The literature of this era was preceded by romanticism and was followed by modernism or realism.

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Epic poetry represents a kind of narrative poetry, which deals with large-scale events, heroic characters and myths. While it is technically a style that has been used by modern writers and might continue to be used, epic poetry is considered a classic approach to storytelling. A later approach, which dominated European storytelling between the 16th and 18th centuries, is modern literature. Modern literature tends to focus less on telling and more on showing.

Epic Poetry Structure

Epic poetry originated in the oral tradition, and its formal rhyme scheme made it easy to memorize and recite aloud. It tends to be structured in heroic couplets, two rhymed lines of iambic pentameter, and can be quite long. Homer's "The Odyssey," for example, consists of 12,000 lines. Epic poetry also features imagery and different types of figurative language, including metaphors and similes.

Modern Literature Structure

Modern literature, not to be confused with modernist literature, which lasted from 1890 to 1940, originated in Medieval literature. Dramatic monologues, a type of dramatic poetry, in which the monologue appears in a form of verse, are found in many early works of modern literature, including those of Moliere, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe. In a dramatic monologue, the speaker makes a speech in verse to the reader or the audience member, and at some critical point, reveals something crucial about himself or the story.

Epic Poetry Narration

Epic poetry often depicts significant events for a culture, such as the founding of a nation. The story is told from the perspective of the narrator, and the narrator may be an observer, the main character or an auxiliary character, but he is the one who recounts the events for the reader. Epic poetry contains many elements of narration found in other narrative styles, including characterization, plot, setting, tone, conflict and dialogue. Furthermore, like other narratives, it also has other aspects of plot including rising action, climax and resolution.

Modern Literature Narration

Because of its focus on performance, modern literature tends to have less narration and more action. In other words, it tends to be less focused on telling and more focused on showing. If a work of modern literature is a play or a dramatic monologue, it has no narrator. Instead, it has characters who both relay some aspects of the story and act out other aspects of the story. Modern literature is what led to the development of the novel. Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote de la Mancha," published in 1605, is a parody of the chivalric romance, a style of literature popular in the medieval period. It is considered the world's first novel.

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The Differences Between Modern Literature & Epic Poetry

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Epic poetry represents a kind of narrative poetry, which deals with large-scale events, heroic characters and myths. While it is technically a style that has been used by modern writers and might continue to be used, epic poetry is considered a classic approach to storytelling. A later approach, which dominated ...

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Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – Thug Notes Summary & Analysis

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Grade 9 Context (Using a Jekyll and Hyde Essay)

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Welcome back to our series on manly honor. Now, I originally planned for the history of honor to be one post, and then decided I could cover it in two, and now I'm thinking it's going to take five posts, counting the one two weeks ago and today's. Who was I kidding? The topic of manly honor is both far more complicated and much more fascinating than I had anticipated.

Now brace yourself - today's post is a doozy. The topic of honor in the Victorian period is the most complex part of a complex evolution, as it involves a myriad of influences and factors. The workload on this one, and the remaining historical installments, necessitated my enlisting of Kate's historical research and writing chops, and together we pored through over 1500 pages of research, and took dozens of pages of notes. After two weeks of banging our heads on our desk, throwing things, several near mental breakdowns, and one all-nighter, we have completed this article. All of which is to say, while I pledge my honor that we have done our very best to make everything as accurate as possible, if there are any errors in our historical facts or terminology, we welcome your very kind and gentle corrections in the comments. Also welcome are any encouraging comments. Twil be like manna for the soul.

Okay, let's get started.

Understanding the Class System in England

At the start of the Victorian era (1830s-1900), English society was highly stratified and hierarchical, and the population fell into three main classes. The idea of classes is hard for us to fully grasp from our modern viewpoint. We often think of them as having to do entirely with income level, and while that was certainly a factor, it also depended on values, education, occupation, family connections and history, birth, as well as your manners, speech, and clothing.

At the top of the heap was the landed aristocracy (meaning land ownership was part of their noble privilege). This "peerage" held titles of nobility and largely descended from the warrior nobility of the Middle Ages who had successfully battled for fiefdoms and then defended those territories from would-be usurpers. They owned land, but rented it to others to work. Right below the peerage was the gentry. Because of the system of primogeniture, only the first born sons inherited a title. Younger sons belonged to the gentry, and though they lacked a title, they were still considered nobility, and true "gentlemen." Whether titled or not, one of the defining qualities of the upper class was that they did not have to work, nor taint themselves with the commonness of trade to earn a living; their income came wholly from owning and renting out land.

The middle class consisted of those who performed "clean," salaried work. The most distinguished of the middle class were clergymen, military officers, lawyers, doctors, and the professors and headmasters of prestigious schools. Farmers who rented a large piece of land but had others do most of the physical work for them were considered middle class too. Clerical workers were included but considered lower on the middle class totem pole. Manufacturers, merchants, and bankers were some of the newer members of the middle class (more on this below), and as white-collar work expanded, the new journalists, police officers, and insurance agents joined the ranks as well.

The working class consisted of those who did any of the "dirty," physical work that remained.

For centuries, people had generally accepted the class system and their place in the hierarchy. Each class had its own rules, standards, culture, and even terminology. It was considered unthinkable to ape the class above or below you - you had to follow the rules of your own class.

The middle class had only recently emerged. Prior, there had generally been two classes: those who owned land were the noble - everybody else, ig noble. As we'll discuss more in the next post, there are different types of honor in every class, but the landed aristocracy laid exclusive right to the term. Commoners were decidedly outside their honor group, and contrary to the system of honor that had existed in primitive times, they could not earn their way into it through adherence to the group's honor code. Instead, honor had now become inheritable - passed down to the aristocracy's sons. An aristocrat who displayed bad manners or behavior with members of his own class could theoretically lose the title of gentleman, but the distinction was largely the product of birth.

The rise of the middle class during the Victorian period created a social fluidity that would challenge this system, and necessitate the creation of a new honor culture that transcended all classes.

The Rise of the Middle Class and the Expansion of Honor

At the beginning of the 19 th century, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. The rise of industry powered sweeping changes in the technological, sociological, and economic landscape of the West.

When 18-year-old Queen Victoria ascended to the British throne in 1837, very few of her subjects had traveled more than 10 miles from the rural spot in which they were born, goods and messages could only travel as fast as a horse could carry them, and only half of English citizens could read and write.

When Victoria died in 1901, the pace and texture of life had dramatically transformed. 80% of English citizens now lived in towns and cities, and some of their homes were outfitted with electric lights, had cabinets stocked with canned foods, and sat on gaslight-dotted streets. Telegraphs carried messages in a blink, railroad tracks criss-crossed the land, and luxurious steamships fairly whisked passengers from England to America in only nine days. A man could now write a letter on his typewriter, get his portrait taken by the local photographer, have an x-ray, vaccination, or chloroform administered by his doctor, and shave with a safety razor at home instead of visiting the barber to have his whiskers trimmed. Education for the young had become compulsory, and literacy soared to nearly 100%.

The most important change of the 19 th century, however, was the rise of the middle class. The Industrial Revolution not only created manufacturing work, but a booming expansion in trade and banking, along with a whole new stratum of white-collar jobs.

While England's economic center of gravity was shifting away from agricultural and towards industrial capitalism, and while many of the nascent middle-class were earning incomes greater than those who owned acreage, the status and political power of the new rich in manufacturing, business, and finance did not keep pace with their rising contribution to the nation's wealth. The aristocracy, a centuries-old honor group that had ever been hostile to incursions from outsiders, vehemently fought against the relinquishing of their position. But the middle-class would force them to give way, not simply by attaining wealth and fighting for a voice in government, but by creating a new honor code - one that was open to all, regardless of class - a code based on ethics and virtues that would come to supplant the one based on birth.

What Were the Tenets of the Stoic-Christian Code of Honor?

The code of honor that developed from the middle-class of the Victorian age was truly an amalgam of several influences:

Rebellion against the values of the aristocracy. Many felt that during England's Regency era (roughly 1795 to 1837), the upper classes had grown decadent, reveling in flamboyance and dandyism, and focusing too much attention on appearance and clothes. It seemed, to some Victorians, to have been a period in which materialism had sapped society's spirituality - the rich walked around in fine attire, but were rotten to the core. Victorians reacted against this with a movement towards sobriety and rectitude.

The middle-class also had disdain for the way the aristocracy held up idleness as a virtue, and looked down upon those who worked for a living. The rising business class turned that idea on its head - arguing that idleness was a vice, while work was a nearly sacred virtue.

Revival in evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christianity moved away from traditional Calvinist beliefs in total depravity (humans are essentially rotten sinners) and predestination, and instead emphasized a person's free will, and that salvation was open to any who chose to believe and cultivated an inner faith. At the same time, evangelical Protestants preached that a continued relationship with God was predicated on living righteously, and that believers should strive for an individual moral perfection, while also working to purify society, reform corrupt practices, and uplift the downtrodden.

Nostalgia. The Victorians, like the folks of the Renaissance, were at the same time progressive and forward-looking, and nostalgic - they looked to past societies for inspiration on how to improve their own. From the medieval period, they drew from the ideals of chivalry (or at least the folklore of chivalry that had been passed down). From Ancient Greece, they adopted parts of Stoic philosophy.

Expanding Democracy. For centuries, the landed nobility had constituted a near iron-clad oligarchy - controlling Parliament, and the culture as well. But during the Victorian Era, those in the middle class pushed back against the idea that the right to vote and to hold government office were reserved for the owners of major acreage. Reform bills during this period expanded the franchise to millions more men, creating a greater sense of egalitarianism and fostering the idea that gentility, and the title of "gentleman," could transcend class.

The Rise of the Self-Made Man. As previously mentioned, for centuries people largely accepted being a member of the class they were born into, and there was almost no chance of moving up into a higher class - a commoner couldn't work his way into the aristocracy no matter how hard he tried. The shift from agriculture to industry opened the possibility (no matter how long the odds were in reality) of social mobility, or what the English called "removable inequality." High status in society could be earned, but only if a man cultivated the skills and character traits necessary to rise in an industrial economy.

If you put all these influences in a pot, and mix them together, what you come up with is the tenets of the Victorian honor code or what Bertram Wyatt-Brown terms " Stoic-Christian honor," and what Victorians often used interchangeably with " respectability." The expanding democratic spirit had inspired a code based on merit over birth, and each of the other influences imparted several qualities to the standards that comprised this new honor code.

The reaction against the perceived excess of the aristocracy resulted in a push for the "reformation of manners," and new rules for proper behavior and decorum as it concerned things like dress and conversation. Sincerity and earnestness were prized; vanity, frivolity, and foppishness spurned. The evangelical movement stressed the importance of morality, particularly chastity, piety, and charity for others. Nostalgia for the idealized chivalry of medieval knights inspired respect for women, while adherence to ancient Stoic philosophy put a premium on self-sufficiency, self-control, and unflappable reserve - the famous British "stiff upper lip." Most of all, the Victorian code of honor emphasized the virtues connected with economic success - those that could help working and middle class men rise in the world: initiative, pluck, ingenuity, independence and personal responsibility (going into debt was shameful), ambition, thrift, punctuality, orderliness, cleanliness, patience, dependability, and most of all hard work.

What Were the Practical Functions of the Stoic-Christian Honor Code?

In a minute we'll get to the overarching purpose behind the creation of the Stoic-Christian honor code, but let's talk first about a few of its more practical functions:
The Victorian honor code helped create structure in a rapidly changing society.
With the rise of industry, the population shifted from rural areas to cities. Cities bred anonymity - gone were the face-to-face interactions between kin that were essential to the enforcement of public, primal honor. How should strangers interact, and how would people's behavior be checked and public reputations be maintained in a society full of impersonal relationships?

The Victorian honor code addressed these concerns by making adherence to the rules of manners and etiquette part of the standard of respectability. Manners were designed to foster decorum, but they also eased the interactions between strangers. Each party knew how to behave and what was expected of them in various situations. And adherence to the code of conduct was a way to build your public reputation for honor; good manners were easily observable markers by which others could judge you, and were seen as outward manifestations of the inner virtues of self-control, courtesy, and respect.

You couldn't remain entirely anonymous even in large cities. A reputation for bad manners, immorality or lax character, or a poor work ethic at your employer would slam shut the doors of both society and business; when meeting a new social or business contact, you had to present letters of recommendation and introduction from others who could vouch for your character. The reputation you earned in one place could follow you wherever you went.

The Victorian honor code created new standards for emerging professions.

Part of the reasoning behind what had been the landed aristocracy's exclusive control of politics and culture, was the idea that because they didn't work for a living, they would be able to serve society with a value highly prized during this period: disinterest. Since they didn't care about money, the thinking went, the landed aristocracy could be morally and intellectually independent, and would do the right thing regardless of circumstances - always putting community needs over self-interest.

But as brand new professions emerged, traditional professions greatly expanded, and the middle-class gained in political power and cultural influence, the question arose of how to ensure that professionals acted with that same disinterested ideal. In response, professional codes of ethics were developed, shaped by the principles of the Victorian honor code; that is, the members of the professions should place virtues like honesty, accountability, and respect above self-interest. While it may be hard to believe, in the absence of many legal restraints, the standard of business morality was quite high, and despite the inevitable swindles of a few scoundrels and cheats, the honor system kept corruption largely in check.
The Victorian honor code created a more universal code that helped unify the classes.
Before the 19 th century, travel and communication was greatly limited, as was trade, and communities were largely self-contained and self-sufficient. The coming of the railroads collapsed distances and made travel cheaper, and national newspapers and popular entertainments eroded distinct regional customs. But while physical and cultural boundaries were eroding, class distinctions remained. Thus a broader code of honor helped unite the country and create national cohesion. As Richard D. Altick argues, "In a nation riven by economic and social disparities, the widely accepted principles of moral Evangelicalism had a reconciling effect, bringing classes together in what might be called an ethical democracy. Their often abrasive relations were eased by their possession of a common morality."
The Victorian honor code fostered the use of oaths and the creation of smaller male honor groups.
While the Victorian honor code provided a universal set of standards that could cross geographic boundaries and class lines, and also help men navigate impersonal relationships, the growth of rootless crowds and lonely anonymity spurred men to create smaller honor groups that could replicate the camaraderie and brotherhood of the past. The giving and taking of oaths grew in popularity as a chance to put the Stoic-Christian ideal of making one's word one's bond to the test, and to create promises of loyalty between men who were not kin, but had purposely decided to become "brothers." The perfect example of the way in which these trends combined are the many college fraternities that were created during this time. Initiates had (and still do) swear an oath, which typically contains pledges of loyalty to one's fraternity brothers and a promise to conduct oneself as a gentleman.

What Was the Overarching Sociological and Philosophical Purpose Behind the Stoic-Christian Honor Code?

All honor codes are created to motivate society's members towards behavior that the group believes will fulfill its needs and ensure its health, happiness, and security. It accomplishes this by shaming individuals who don't meet the code's standards, and rewarding those who do, giving special amounts of praise and privileges to those who don't just keep the code, but excel it.

In Victorian society, unlike in the primitive honor cultures we have discussed previously, raw survival was no longer the most pressing need. And justice - carried out in primitive times in a reflexive, eye-for-an-eye fashion - was increasingly administered by professional law enforcement and legal systems.

Thus, with those very basic needs taken care of, Victorian society turned to a higher aspiration for their honor code: progress - both moral and material. For the Victorians, the two types of progress went hand in hand. They believed that just as they had used human intelligence to channel the powers of steam and electricity, and had engineered ways to master their physical environment, so too could each individual harness his latent powers in order to master himself. Each man could morally progress as far as he determined to go.

Personal progress and material progress fed each other in a loop. As Altick puts it, "The well-being of society was derived from the spiritual health of its individual members." In other words, Victorians believed that the more that individuals lived the virtues outlined above, the better and stronger the whole society would become. Conversely, each man who slipped into immorality played a role in sapping the whole nation's strength (some even considered moral laxity treason during times of war). Men were motivated to follow the code to attain the status of a respectable gentleman, to avoid being shamed and maintain the opportunities open only to those with an honorable reputation. The more he excelled at the code, and the more he cultivated ambition, industry, discipline, and so on, the higher a gentleman rose in the ranks of society and the more status he gained. And the more men strove for status, the greater the economic and technological progress society experienced as a whole. Just as in the primitive tribe, but now with a new set of traits, what was good for the individual man was good for the group as a whole.

Was Stoic-Christian Honor a Public or Private Honor?

In the previous posts in this series, we talked about how the decline in traditional honor is rooted in its shift from being external and public to inner and private in nature. Traditional honor was based solely on your having a reputation worthy of respect and admiration in a group of equal peers, while inner honor is judged only by the man (and perhaps God) himself.

Despite Stoic-Christian honor's addition of many other character traits and moral virtues to the simple primal standards of strength, courage, and mastery (and it was an addition, not a replacement - courage was still part of the honor code for a Victorian man), the Victorian honor code remained largely public in nature. Remember the definition from Julian Pitt-Rivers I shared in the first post: "Honour is the value of a person in his own eyes, but also in the eyes of his society. It is his estimation of his own worth, his claim to pride, but it is also the acknowledgment of that claim, his excellence recognized by society, his right to pride." While the claim to pride for a Victorian gentleman rested on moral virtues rather than physical prowess, the process was the same for him as it was for primitive man - it began with an inner claim to excellence, but that claim had to then be recognized by one's peers. You couldn't act like a scalawag, and say you were a gentleman - no one else would recognize your claim to that title. Others watched and judged your behavior, and middle and upper class men, at least of a little eminence, had a public reputation. A slip in morality or the breaking of decorum could bring public shame, and ostracization from social and professional circles.

Boys in both private and public schools were taught to be gentlemen, and the older boys supervised and checked the behavior of the younger. According to Sally Mitchell, these peer mentors learned "to give orders in a way that would not arouse resentment and to internalize a sense of responsibility." In the athletic arena, young men dedicated themselves to the concepts of teamwork and "fair play," and upbraided those who violated the code of sportsmanship.

However, there was a shift to a greater emphasis on one's personal conscience during the Victorian period. The Victorians simply picked up what the Renaissance thinkers had begun in championing the importance of sincerity - it wasn't enough to simply act like a good man, you had to actually be a good man deep down. A man who achieved this congruence of outer behavior and inner virtue, adherents to the Stoic-Christian honor code argued, not only earned the approbation of others but enjoyed the satisfaction of a free and clear conscience. A Victorian man needed to get in touch with his conscience more than his predecessors, because increased geographic mobility and travel meant that, unlike his primal brethren, he had a good chance of finding himself outside his honor group and among strangers - or with no supervision at all. For a Victorian gentleman, this was a great test of one's honor - would you keep your word and maintain your standards when no one was watching? (Contrast this standard with the advice that traditional honor-ist Thomas Jefferson gave to his nephew decades prior to "ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.")

The popular adoption of university honor codes during this period perfectly encapsulates the tension between private and public honor for the Victorians. University honor codes celebrated the ideal that simply by giving one's word of honor, a student could be trusted to do the right thing - academically or otherwise - even when someone wasn't looking over his shoulder. Yet, at the same time, some of these codes made it a provision of honor that if a student saw a fellow student cheating or otherwise doing something dishonest, he was obligated to turn him in - sometimes even tolerance of a violation was considered a violation itself. We moderns who have entirely lost the concept of public reputation and judgment, have questioned whether turning someone else in is truly honorable (and some students at the time grappled with this question too). I would personally posit that the provision made in some honor codes, such as that of the Brigade of Midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy, which allows the observer of the violation to confront the accused without formally reporting him, aligns with the principles of traditional honor to a greater extent.

Conclusion

Oftentimes, when a modern man thinks about honor, his mind turns to the ideals of honesty and integrity, duels (we'll get to those next time), university honor codes, "women and children first," and a well-mannered, Stoic uprightness. What they think of, in other words, is the honor code of the Victorian Era. Stoic-Christian honor is still indelibly imprinted on our cultural consciousness for several reasons. First, the Victorian era represented the birth of the modern mindset, and its honor code developed in response to technological, sociological, and economical factors that are still with us today; the effort to deal the seemingly fast and ever-changing pace of life, the consequences of anonymity, and the pursuit of personal progress and professional goals still resonates with our own sensibilities. Second, the Victorian era represented the last manifestation of honor as a societal culture, not simply as a private concept. Third, many of the ideals of the Stoic-Christian honor code continue to have deep appeal (and often pop up here on AoM), the reasons for which I will discuss in the final post in this series.

Though the Victorian code had much to recommend it, it did not last - stumbling into the 20 th century and finally expiring after the First World War. Although the stereotype of ridiculously repressed and prudish Victorians paints far too narrow a view of a much more diverse group, in overzealous hands, the honor code did indeed become priggish and austere - focused only on the don'ts rather than moderation and positive virtues. It was used by some more as a stick of judgment with which to swat others, than a personal yardstick for one's own behavior. There was enormous pressure to conform to the code, and as the celebration of individualism - of following one's own convictions and desires - increased in the 20 th century, and shame became a negative, the Stoic-Christian honor code would be tossed aside as far too constraining.

Further, despite the (at least marginally) coherent picture we have tried to describe here, the Stoic-Christian honor code was never universally adopted by all men. Born of the middle class, while it had an enormous influence on Western societies that extended both to the upper and lower classes, its penetration to the latter was minimal. For the urban working class, honor still resembled the primal variety, with disputes settled with fists and status based on physical prowess and strength. And even those in the middle and upper classes struggled to reconcile what felt like a very manly urge to be aggressive and rowdy, with the ideal of being a refined and restrained gentleman, who was above such things.

This struggle between competing ideas of manly honor is vividly illuminated against the backdrop of the diverging societies and values of the American North and South. And so that is where we will turn next time. Then we tackle the evolution of honor in the wars of the 20 th century, followed by the decline of honor during the countercultural movement and its modern state. I think. Maybe even all this week, so we can actually have time for working on other posts, and showering. Maybe. I assure you that the rest of the posts in this series will be shorter and pithier, so I hope you will continue on with us.

We shall leave you with a piece from a Victorian poet, Robert Nicoll, that couldn't better sum up his contemporaries' views of honor:
True Nobility
"I ask not for his lineage,
I ask not for his name;
If manliness be in his heart,
He noble birth may claim.

I care not though of world's wealth
But slender be his part,
If yes you answer when I ask,
'Hath he a true-man's heart?'

I ask not from what land he came,
Nor where his youth was nursed;
If pure the spring, it matters not
The spot from whence it burst.

The palace or the hovel
Where first his life began,
I seek not of; but answer this-
'Is he an honest man?'

Nay, blush not now; what matters it
Where first he drew his breath?
A manger was the cradle-bed
Of Him of Nazareth.

Be nought, be any, everything,
I care not what you be,
If yes you answer, when I ask
'Art thou pure, true, and free?"

Manly Honor Series:
Part I: What is Honor?
Part II: The Decline of Traditional Honor in the West, Ancient Greece to the Romantic Period
Part III: The Victorian Era and the Development of the Stoic-Christian Code of Honor
Part IV: The Gentlemen and the Roughs: The Collision of Two Honor Codes in the American North
Part V: Honor in the American South
Part VI: The Decline of Traditional Honor in the West in the 20th Century
Part VII: How and Why to Revive Manly Honor in the Twenty-First Century
Podcast: The Gentlemen and the Roughs with Dr. Lorien Foote

___________________________
Sources:
Daily Life in Victorian England by Sally Mitchell
Victorian People and Ideas by Richard D. Altick
Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South by Bertram Wayatt-Brown
The Gentlemen and the Roughs by Lorien Foote
Honor: A History by James Bowman

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The Victorian Honor Code | The Art of Manliness

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Welcome back to our series on manly honor. Now, I originally planned for the history of honor to be one post, and then decided I could cover it in two, and now I'm thinking it's going to take five posts, counting the one two weeks ago and today's. Who was I kidding?

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How to tell you’re reading a gothic novel – in pictures

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Are some novels more gothic than others? We return to the genre’s roots in the 18th century for this definitive guide to gothic fiction