The "Brownies of R L Stevenson
Robert Louise Stevenson would always be remembered as a master story-teller of classics like Kidnapped, Treasure Island, etc. Most of his tales, however, came to him in his dream. According to his own account, when he "lay down to prepare himself for sleep, he no longer sought amusement, but printable and profitable tale" - and his dreams would furnish him with such gifts.
One example is the writing of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson was trying to write a story about "that strong sense of man's double being". After much struggle, one night he had a dream in which a man was being chased for some crime. While running away from his pursuers, the criminal took powder and underwent a change in his appearance. On waking up, Stevenson had only to elaborate the plot around this episode.
It is not surprising that Stevenson himself never believed that his stories were written by him; he attributed them to "Brownies" who are "the little people who manage man's internal theatre". In one of his books, Across the Plains, he wrote:
"...they are but just my Brownies, God bless them! who do one-half of my work for me while I am asleep, and in all human likelihood, do the rest for me as well, when I am wide awake and fondly suppose I do it for myself... the whole of published fiction should be the single-handed product of some brownie, some Familiar, some unseen collaborator, whom I keep locked back in a back garret..."
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