Deacon Brodie was a wealthy artisan who unleashed terror on 18th century Edinburgh—and inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's horror classic 100 years later.
IRobert Louis Stevenson had spent the night in his sickbed enveloped by a nightmare that had descended like a swift-forming fog, swirling together memories and discarded thoughts. Illness plagued Stevenson his whole life, and he’d suffered especially after he and his wife, Fanny, moved to Dorset on the English seaside in 1884.
For three days, Stevenson wrote constantly, filing “page after page” from bed. Later in life, Fanny would reflect on this moment in their lives, thinking back on what inspired Stevenson’s marathon effort,. She recalled that her husband had recently read an article in a French scientific journal about the subconscious, about the mind’s inner workings and buried desires. Yet that was not the only thing on Stevenson’s mind when the dream came to him.
It’s likely Brodie began his double life as early as 1768, but his most prolific period came in the 18 months beginning in July 1786. At that time, he grew close with two men who would become his chief accomplices, George Smith, a traveling salesman, and John Brown, a convicted felon on the lam in Scotland facing deportation to an overseas penal colony. The trio, who all enjoyed drinks and cockfighting, struck up a fast friendship.
By January 1788, “authorities were straining every nerve to discover” those responsible for the growing number of thefts, according to a chronicle at the time, claiming the crimes were “strik[ing] terror to the hearts of wealthy” Edinburghers.
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