Promotional photo for a stage adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1895
The 20th and 21st centuries had horror to spare–but there’s still nothing quite like the slow build of horror in the hands of a 19th century master like Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, after Turn of the Screw, is probably the best, tightest, and most pure form of the gothic novella in English. And his short story, excerpted below and linked to at full length, is genius. All I need to tell you is that it’s about a young man with the job of procuring cadavers for medical students, and you know pretty much all you need to know to start the chills.
A quick excerpt from RL Stevenson’s, The Body Snatcher:
The supply of subjects was a continual trouble to him as well as to his master. In that large and busy class, the raw material of the anatomists kept perpetually running out; and the business thus rendered necessary was not only unpleasant in itself, but threatened dangerous consequences to all who were concerned. It was the policy of Mr K—- to ask no questions in his dealings with the trade. ‘They bring the boy, and we pay the price,’ he used to say, dwelling on the alliteration - quid pro quo. And, again, and somewhat profanely, ‘Ask no questions,’ he would tell his assistants, ‘for conscience sake.’ There was no understanding that the subjects were provided by the crime of murder. Had that idea been broached to him in words, he would have recoiled in horror; but the lightness of his speech upon so grave a matter was, in itself, an offence against good manners, and a temptation to the men with whom he dealt. Fettes, for instance, had often remarked to himself upon the singular freshness of the bodies. He had been struck again and again by the hang-dog, abominable looks of the ruffians who came to him before the dawn; and, putting things together clearly in his private thoughts, he perhaps attributed a meaning too immoral and too categorical to the unguarded counsels of his master. He understood his duty, in short, to have three branches: to take what was brought to pay the price, and to avert the eye from any evidence of crime.
That paragraph alone should be enough to launch a thousand screenplays.
A little froideur for your balmy and seemingly safe May evening…
http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/ghost-stories-stevenson.html
