🎙️ Out of the Encyclopedia of History

Sai Marie/InfinityxCreations

🖋️ Step into the dark heart of history with us as we uncover the astonishing and truly Gothic origins of Robert Louis Stevenson’s masterpiece, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Did you know Stevenson wrote the entire first draft in just three days while dying of tuberculosis? That his wife made him burn the whole manuscript? And that he rewrote the 30,000-word classic in six more days—possibly while medicated with cocaine? Join me, Sai Marie, author and gothic enthusiast, as we explore the terrifying nightmare and the physical frenzy that gave birth to the ultimate story of human duality. Plus: Stick around for a special Quick Read-Aloud—a piece of dark flash fiction called “Perpetua Black Tide”—to kick off your Saturday with a quick shot of November spooky! Don’t miss the true story behind the horror that defined a genre. Get full access to Sai’s Newsletter at saimarie.substack.com/subscribe

Transcript

00:00Hello everyone. So, welcome dear listeners to the Mind of Symarie. Tonight we're doing

00:15out of the Encyclopedia of History. In this episode, we're going to crack open the great

00:24book encyclopedia and reveal the wild true stories behind a classic. As always, I'm your

00:33host, Symarie, and as both a person of both the Gothic Persuasion and a fellow author,

00:39tonight I am happy that we are diving into a truly morbid and magnificent tale. Tonight

00:48we'll pull a masterpiece right out of the chilling heart of the Victorian era, The Strange Case

00:54of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Which, side note, has everybody watched Guillermo del Toro's

01:02Frankenstein on Netflix yet? I will be putting up my reviews on my Letterboxd and other review

01:09sites as soon as I get done getting this episode all polished up and straight away. But yes,

01:16tune in to that because it is now available and definitely looking so forward to it.

01:24So, back to the main topic. We all know the phrase Jekyll and Hyde. It's an instantaneous

01:33shorthand for a split personality for the war between good and evil inside one human soul.

01:40But the story of how this book came to be is arguably more terrifying, more intense,

01:46and more gothic than the tale itself, believe it or not. Which, by the way, shout out to the Robert

01:53De Niro version of Frankenstein from the 90s. One of my favorites. Definitely a good one. And also to that,

02:03John Malkovich and Julia Roberts. Yeah, John Malkovich and Julia Roberts. Mary Riley. Those two.

02:19Definitely check them out with regard to this. And back to what I was saying.

02:24Because the true genesis of this novel includes tuberculosis, a nightmare, nine days of fevered

02:31writing, an angry wife, and possibly even cocaine, let's go back to September 1885. The author,

02:41Robert Louis Stevenson, is 35 years old and quite literally dying. He has tuberculosis since his

02:47teens, a brutal disease that has caused him to cough up blood, waste away, and was considered incurable.

02:53He was confined to his bed, forbidden even to speak for fear of triggering a hemorrhage.

02:59And one of the few medications doctors prescribed for his hemorrhaging lungs in the 1880s?

03:05Cocaine. Yes, the drug was considered a miracle cure, a vessel constrictor to stop the bleeding.

03:10Whether he was actively using it is still debated by historians, but the fact remains that Stevenson

03:16was fevered, ravaged by disease, and possibly medicated definitely at the edge of life when he had

03:21the nightmare that changed literature forever. He woke up screaming. His wife, Fanny, rushed to his

03:29side. He was shouting about transformations and monsters. As soon as he snapped awake, Stevenson was

03:35furious at her. Why did you wake me? He shouted. I was dreaming a fine boogie tale. That boogie tale

03:42had given him three vivid scenes. A man drinking a potion, the transformation into a monster, and the

03:47monster committing terrible acts. He ignored doctor's orders, got out of bed, and started writing.

03:53His stepson, Lloyd Osborne, was a witness to the frenzy. He said Louis came downstairs in a fever, read

03:59nearly half the book aloud, and then was away again busy writing. The first draft took three days.

04:05Three days, 72 hours, an entire 30,000-word novella written while coughing blood. He handed the manuscript to

04:11Fanny, and here's where the story takes a truly destructive turn. Fanny hated it. Not because it

04:18was bad writing, but because she felt he'd written it as a simple horror thriller about a man becoming

04:23a monster. She saw the deeper truth. It needed a moral allegory about the duality of humanity.

04:29You've written it wrong, she told him. This should be a moral tale, not just a thriller.

04:34Stevenson was crushed. He poured every last drop of his energy into this, but he trusted Fanny's

04:39literary judgment. So in a shocking act of artistic sacrifice, he took the entire manuscript, all three

04:45days of fevered work, walked to the fireplace, and burned it. He burned every single page. If I don't

04:51destroy it, he said I'll be tempted to salvage parts of it, and I need to start fresh. And then, still

04:57stuck, still hemorrhaging, he sat down and rewrote the entire novel, this time infusing the deeper moral

05:02questions Fanny insisted upon. He finished the second draft in six more days. Nine days, that is the

05:08timeline for one of the most famous horror stories ever written. A complete rewrite by hand by a man

05:14whose lungs were failing. When it was published in January 1886, it was an instant sensation. The book

05:21sold 40,000 copies in Britain within six months. The phrase Jekyll and Hyde immediately entered our

05:26permanent vocabulary. This is a story about the creative fire that cannot be extinguished, even by death

05:31itself. Stevenson died a few years later in Samoa, far from the cold world that nearly killed him, but his most

05:37famous work, born of a nightmare, a fierce editor, and nine fevered days lives on.

05:46Now, as promised, to truly kick off your Saturday and satisfy that gothic craving, I have a quick

05:53read aloud. This is a piece of flash fiction, less than 500 words, to give you a little campfire

05:59spookiness, and a quick hit of November chill. So get cozy, turn down the lights, and let's set the scene

06:07for a short story I call The Latch... Excuse me. Perpetua Black Tide.

06:18Perpetua Black Tide by Cy Marie Johnson. That's me.

06:23It was eerie, and yet Mireya's mind couldn't shake it. The caption for the travel blog had already been

06:31half-written in her head. Thor's Well, Oregon's most misleadingly named natural landmark. Nothing

06:37divine, just terrifying geology. It was just the sort of title she thrived on, loved even. Anything

06:45with the raw, cold, wet truth of the place. She had driven intently for three hours south from Florence,

06:52desperate for a shot that fully captured the violence without resorting to cliché.

06:57The basalt shelf at Cape Perpetua was slipped with spray, a permanent sheen of winter, even on this

07:04clear November afternoon. She set her tripod close to the edge, ignoring the distant ropes. Her only go

07:11was to get close and prove the danger was merely physics. The well inhaled, and then the world paused.

07:20A deep quiet, and the vast circular drainpipe began pulling the foamy brine into a churning dark void.

07:29The sound, then, was a mournful deep sucking, like a profound melancholy that brought her strange

07:36vibration to Mireya's chest. Click. Oh, for the money shot. She captured the retreating water. Next came the

07:45spout. But, as the drain bottomed out, Mireya froze.

07:52The skeptic's iron rule played through her mind, then. Believe the lens, not the eye.

07:57Snapped. Standing there on the wet, slippery base of the hole, draped in strands of red algae and black bull kelp,

08:04was a horse. Impossibly thin, its dark frame too delicate for the crushing weight of the water it

08:12defied. It was completely still, head lowered, as though enduring some unending penance. Its eyes were

08:19two pieces of reflective chip quartz. A glitch in the light. A trick of the foam. She quickly adjusted

08:26her focus, trying to prove the shape was driftwood. It wasn't. It was equine. It was suffering.

08:36It lifted its head. No sound came from its mouth. But Mireya felt a deep, sickening wave of grief wash

08:43over her. A desperate need to leap down, to touch it, and to pull it out of its watery prison.

08:49She understood, in a cold, electric flash of certainty, that the horse was the source of the

08:56well's mournful sound. It wasn't geology. It was sorrow. She reached her hand out toward the well,

09:05not for a picture, but to offer comfort. Then, somehow, the name of the creature, however impossible,

09:13came into her mind. The kelpie didn't move. But as the next thunderous wave crashed against the shelf,

09:23it turned its quartz eyes directly onto her. The well exploded. It was not just water. It was a

09:30column of cold, saline energy mixed with the beast's black kelp-strewn form. The force was

09:36sudden and absolute. It didn't push her back. It pulled her forward, over the slick edge,

09:42her last thought, as the dark water swallowed her camera, and her skepticism,

09:47was the new terrifying caption. It wasn't physics. It was hungry. The end.

09:59And so, with that, dear listeners, I hope you have a wonderfully spooky Saturday,

10:08made better by the knowledge that some of the greatest literature ever written was forged

10:12in fever and fire. Thank you for turning in to this one out of the Encyclopedia of History.

10:19If you enjoyed this episode, please hit subscribe, leave a comment with your favorite gothic tale,

10:24and consider supporting the newsletter here on Substack.

10:27Saimarie.substack.com forward slash at Saimarie. That's S-A-I-M-A-R-I-E.

10:40And, um,

10:42it is your support that keeps the dictionary open and the microphone on.

10:48So, make sure you join in the next time. Until then, stay curious and be careful of the boogie

10:55tales that lurk in the dark. Have a great night.

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