The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Diary of a Madman ... and a Drug Fiend?👼👺

Having recently read both 'Treasure Island' and 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' by Robert Louis Stevenson I wanted to know more about the author's life and times -

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'1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die'

I was also surprised to see the French author Guy de Maupassant had a very similar, but nastier (I think) short story titled 'The Diary of a Madman', which I think must have had some influence on Crowley's book title about drug addiction, 'Diary of a Drug Fiend'.

Diary of a Madman by
  Guy de Maupassant

Diary of a Drug Fiend by
  Aleister Crowley

I found a podcast called 'Straight Talking English' which had a few episodes about Stevenson and his Jekyll & Hyde book, which I found rather enlightening.

Straight Talking English Podcast

Straight Talking English Podcast: 
Robert Louis Stevenson

Straight Talking English Podcast: 
Doctor Jekyll 

Straight Talking English Podcast:
Duality in Jekyll and Hyde 

I found it interesting to find Jack Palance playing Long John Silver in a 1999 movie version of 'Treasure Island' and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a 1968 TV movie, which were both worth a look.

Both of Stevenson's books have had a massive ripple effect throughout popular culture right up to the present day.

"Stevenson had long been intrigued by the idea of how human personalities can reflect the interplay of good and evil. While still a teenager, he developed a script for a play about William Brodie, which he later reworked with the help of W. E. Henley and which was produced for the first time in 1882.

In early 1884, he wrote the short story "Markheim", which he revised in 1884 for publication in a Christmas annual. According to his essay "A Chapter on Dreams" (Scribner's, Jan. 1888), he racked his brains for an idea for a story and had a dream, and upon waking had the intuition for two or three scenes that would appear in the story Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Biographer, Graham Balfour, quoted Stevenson's wife, Fanny Stevenson:
In the small hours of one morning,[...] I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis. 

Thinking he had a nightmare, I awakened him. He said angrily: "Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale." I had awakened him at the first transformation scene.
Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's stepson, wrote: "I don't believe that there was ever such a literary feat before as the writing of Dr. Jekyll. I remember the first reading as though it were yesterday. Louis came downstairs in a fever; read nearly half the book aloud; and then, while we were still gasping, he was away again, and busy writing. I doubt if the first draft took so long as three days.""

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde -
Best of Coast to Coast AM -
10/18/22

Well, I guess listening to all of those podcasts above and watching those movies kept me and my shadow off the streets for a while, if nothing else;-)

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