Victorian Gothic Literature: The Story of Jekyll and Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde after a fever-induced nightmare in 1885, drawing on two real-life inspirations — Deacon Brodie, a respected Edinburgh citizen secretly leading a double life as a burglar, and Eugène Chantrelle, a friend of Stevenson's who turned out to be a poisoner — to build one of victorian gothic literature's most enduring studies of human duality.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: A Victorian Gothic Literature Classic
Published in 1886, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has become shorthand for anyone living a double life. But the real story behind this piece of victorian gothic literature is stranger — and more personal to its author — than most people realise.
A Nightmare and a Real Criminal
Stevenson described the idea arriving from a nightmare, calling the result "a fine bogey tale." But the concept had deeper roots: years earlier, Stevenson had written a play based on Deacon William Brodie, a respected 18th-century Edinburgh cabinetmaker and city councillor who led a secret double life as a burglar. Brodie's story — an upstanding citizen concealing a criminal alter ego — gave Stevenson a real historical template for exactly the kind of duality he wanted to explore.
A Second, More Personal Inspiration
Brodie wasn't Stevenson's only real-life template — and the second one was far closer to home. Stevenson was personally acquainted with Eugène Chantrelle, a French teacher he'd meet for drinks in Edinburgh. Chantrelle turned out to be a poisoner: he murdered his teenage wife for a life insurance payout, and was suspected of killing others the same way at his own dinner parties. Stevenson sat through the trial and later wrote that he'd found Chantrelle's outward warmth deceptive all along, describing himself as feeling much like Dr Jekyll confronting the acts of Edward Hyde. Where Brodie gave Stevenson the concept, Chantrelle gave him the horror of realising it could be someone you actually knew.
Stevenson's Own Duality
Some biographers go further, suggesting Stevenson was drawing on something closer to home: his own sense of a divided self, torn between the respectable literary figure expected of him and a wilder, more rebellious nature. Whether autobiographical or not, the novella's power comes from how convincingly it captures that internal split.
Why This Defines Victorian Gothic Literature
Jekyll and Hyde is set in a London of stark contrasts — genteel townhouses a short walk from the fog-shrouded, crime-ridden streets of Soho. That divided city mirrors the divided man: Dr Jekyll, the picture of Victorian respectability, and Mr Hyde, everything Jekyll's society demanded he suppress. Stevenson uses the device of a chemical potion to physically separate the two, but the real subject is repression — exactly the anxiety that runs through so much victorian gothic literature of the period.
Why It Still Resonates
Nearly 140 years later, "a real Jekyll and Hyde" is still how we describe anyone who seems fundamentally different behind closed doors. Few novellas have contributed as lasting a phrase to how we talk about human nature.
Why We Chose It for a Physical Piece
A story about the tension between the self we show the world and the self we hide is exactly the kind of psychological weight worth giving a physical form — a design built around contrast, concealment, and what's kept just out of sight.
Want a piece built around a story with real depth to it? Explore the collection or get in touch to start a custom design.
