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| "Merry Mabel": ink drawing, watercolor & junk collage. (j.long) |
Want music?
Click: Tim McGraw, Humble and Kind.
I am still at home on Orange County, but meanwhile the family in Las Vegas is participating in their annual Santa Run for Charity.
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| Newly engaged Manu and Jacob Salloum |
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| Newlyweds, Jordan and Raquel Salloum |
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| Newlyweds, Jordan and Raquel Salloum |
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| WonderWoman, Superman and Duke in stroller. |
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| 10 week Boxer, Duke ... done. |
2GN2S
Ukraine War Continues ...
Robert Louis Stevenson
He wrote it in 3 days while dying of tuberculosis. His wife made him burn it. He rewrote it in 6 more days—possibly high on cocaine prescribed for his hemorrhaging lungs. It became the most famous horror story ever written.
In September 1885, Robert Louis Stevenson woke up screaming.
His wife, Fanny, rushed to his bedside, terrified. He was thrashing in the sheets, eyes wild, shouting about transformations and monsters.
"Louis, wake up! You're having a nightmare!"
Stevenson snapped awake—and immediately became furious at her.
"Why did you wake me?" he shouted. "I was dreaming a fine bogey-tale!"
That "bogey-tale" would become The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—one of the most famous horror stories ever written.
But first, Stevenson had to survive long enough to write it.
Robert Louis Stevenson was 35 years old and dying.
He'd had tuberculosis since his teens—a disease that slowly destroyed the lungs, causing victims to cough up blood, lose weight, and suffocate over months or years.
In the 1880s, there was no cure. Doctors prescribed rest, fresh air, and various medications that rarely worked.
One of those medications? Cocaine.
Yes, cocaine. In the 1880s, it was considered a miracle drug—prescribed for everything from depression to lung disease. Medical journals touted its ability to constrict blood vessels and stop hemorrhaging.
Whether Stevenson was actively using cocaine while writing Jekyll and Hyde remains debated by historians. His wife Fanny was known to scour British medical journals for treatments, and cocaine was heavily promoted in those journals at the time.
What we know for certain: Stevenson was confined to bed, coughing blood, forbidden by his doctor to even speak for fear of triggering more hemorrhages.
And in that state—fevered, possibly medicated, definitely dying—he had the nightmare that would change literature forever.
The dream gave him three vivid scenes:
A man drinking a potion
The transformation into a monster
The monster committing terrible acts
When Fanny woke him, Stevenson was furious because he'd been watching the story unfold in his mind like a movie. He immediately got out of bed—against doctor's orders—and began writing.
His stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, later described what happened next:
"Louis came downstairs in a fever, read nearly half the book aloud, and then was away again, busy writing. The first draft took three days."
Three days. Stevenson hand-wrote an entire 30,000-word novella in 72 hours while coughing blood.
When he finished, he gave the manuscript to Fanny to read.
She hated it.
Not because it was poorly written—but because she thought he'd missed the point. He'd written it as a straightforward horror story about a man who becomes a monster. But Fanny saw something deeper: an allegory about the dual nature of humanity, the good and evil within every person.
"You've written it wrong," she told him. "This should be a moral tale, not just a thriller."
Stevenson was devastated. He'd poured everything into this manuscript. But he trusted Fanny's judgment—she was his first and most important editor.
So he did something drastic.
He took the entire manuscript—three days of fevered work—walked to the fireplace, and burned it.
Every page. Reduced to ashes.
"If I don't destroy it," he said, "I'll be tempted to salvage parts of it. I need to start fresh."
And then, still sick, still hemorrhaging, possibly still on medication, Stevenson rewrote the entire novel in six days.
Six days. A complete rewrite of a literary masterpiece. By hand. While dying.
His stepson later wrote: "The mere physical feat was tremendous."
When Stevenson finished the second draft, he collapsed. But he had his book.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published in January 1886.
It was an instant sensation.
Within six months, 40,000 copies sold in Britain alone. American publishers pirated it (copyright laws were weak), and it became a bestseller in the United States.
Stage adaptations opened within months. Actors became famous for playing Hyde. One actor, Richard Mansfield, was so convincing as the monster that some people suspected him of being Jack the Ripper (who was terrorizing London at the time).
The phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" entered the English language permanently, describing anyone with a dual personality.
But Stevenson never fully recovered his health. He spent the rest of his life chasing warmer climates, trying to ease his tuberculosis.
In 1888, he sailed to the South Pacific and eventually settled in Samoa, building a house and living among the islanders who called him "Tusitala" (teller of tales).
He kept writing—Treasure Island, Kidnapped, dozens of essays and stories. But tuberculosis was slowly winning.
On December 3, 1894, Stevenson was working on a new novel when he suddenly collapsed. He died hours later of a brain hemorrhage. He was 44 years old.
The Samoans buried him on top of Mount Vaea, overlooking the ocean, with a tombstone bearing his own poem:
"Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
But his most famous work—written in nine fevered days while dying, burned and rewritten in a frenzy of creativity—lives on.
Jekyll and Hyde has been adapted hundreds of times. It defined the horror genre. It gave us a metaphor for human duality that we still use today.
And it all came from a nightmare that Stevenson's wife almost prevented him from remembering.
He had a nightmare. His wife woke him. He wrote it in 3 days. She made him burn it. He rewrote it in 6 more days—while dying of tuberculosis, possibly high on cocaine. It became the most famous horror story ever written.
Just because ...
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| Indian Paradise Flycatcher |
Sunday's Smiles ...
Hoping you feel all the good things in your day.
1 comment:
Always love the family photos and what a fun, fun day to support others by. Everyone looked great. The RLS story was interesting as was the info on Ukraine. When I first saw the start of the video, I thought it might be Big Bird dressed up as a pumpkin. LOL! But the dancing was quite interesting to watch. I don't know how you do it day by day, Jacki. But thank you.
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