Was there a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde didn’t exist, but there was a Scottish cabinetmaker named William Brodie who inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s story.

Brodie, a respected businessman by day, wore a mask and led a gang of robbers by night. Born in 1741, Brodie was hanged in 1788.

The story interested Stevenson and inspired The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886).

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