Book Report - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

A. Title of the Book: “ The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” B. Author: Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 -1894) * As a novelist, he is often noted for the powers of invention and depth of psychological insights found in his work; a skill defined by G. K. Chesterton as being able ‘to pick up the right word up on the point of his pen’. * Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. * A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world. * Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 13 November 1850 to Margaret Isabella Balfour and Thomas Stevenson, a leading lighthouse engineer. * His father had plans for Stevenson to follow his profession but his son’s ill-health and weak disposition meant that an alternative career had to be decided upon. * An only child, strange-looking and eccentric, Stevenson found it hard to fit in when he was sent to a nearby school at age six, a problem repeated at age eleven when he went on to the Edinburgh Academy; but he mixed well in lively games with his cousins in summer holidays at Colinton. * Stevenson recalled this time of sickness in "The Land of Counterpane" in “A Child's Garden of Verses” (1885), and dedicated the book to his nurse. * The canoe voyage with Simpson brought Stevenson to Grez in September 1876, and here he first met Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. * Although Stevenson returned to Britain shortly after this first meeting, Fanny apparently remained in his thoughts, and he wrote an essay, "On falling in love," for the Cornhill Magazine. * Fanny and Robert were married in May 1880, although, as he said, he was "a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom." * He later wrote about the experience in “The Amateur Emigrant.” * During his