<P> 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 ." </P> <P> Inspiration may also have come from the writer's friendship with Edinburgh - based French teacher Eugene Chantrelle, who was convicted and executed for the murder of his wife in May 1878 . Chantrelle, who had appeared to lead a normal life in the city, poisoned his wife with opium . According to author Jeremy Hodges, Stevenson was present throughout the trial and as "the evidence unfolded he found himself, like Dr Jekyll,' aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde' ." Moreover, it was believed that the doctor had committed other murders both in France and Britain by poisoning his victims at supper parties with a "favourite dish of toasted cheese and opium". </P> <P> Louis Vivet, a mental patient who was suffering from multiple personality disorder, caught Frederic W.H. Myers's attention and he wrote to Stevenson after the story was published . Stevenson was polite in his response but rejected that reading . As was customary, Mrs Stevenson would read the draft and offer her criticisms in the margins . Robert Stevenson was confined to bed at the time from a haemorrhage . Therefore, she left her comments with the manuscript and Robert in the toilet . She said that in effect the story was really an allegory, but Robert was writing it as a story . After a while, Robert called her back into the bedroom and pointed to a pile of ashes: he had burnt the manuscript in fear that he would try to salvage it, and in the process forced himself to start again from nothing, writing an allegorical story as she had suggested . Scholars debate whether he really burnt his manuscript; there is no direct factual evidence for the burning, but it remains an integral part of the history of the novella . </P> <P> Stevenson re-wrote the story in three to six days . A number of later biographers have alleged that Stevenson was on drugs during the frantic re-write; for example, William Gray's revisionist history A Literary Life (2004) said he used cocaine while other biographers said he used ergot . However, the standard history, according to the accounts of his wife and son (and himself), says he was bed - ridden and sick while writing it . According to Osbourne, "The mere physical feat was tremendous and, instead of harming him, it roused and cheered him inexpressibly". He continued to refine the work for four to six weeks after the initial re-write . The novella was written in the southern English seaside town of Bournemouth, where Stevenson had moved due to ill health, to benefit from its sea air and warmer southern climate . </P>

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