The Haunting of Mr and Mrs Stevenson is a remarkable novel, based on real people and events, and should come with a warning. Owners of large, heavy, dark brown wooden wardrobes should proceed with caution! The wardrobe in question, having given Robert Louis Stevenson nightmares as a child, is a sinister ‘character’ throughout.
In 1878, while resting in Grez-sur-Loing, a rural retreat near Paris, Louis meets an American woman, Mrs Fanny Osborne. With her three children, she has escaped from her philandering husband. Some years later, after a complicated divorce in America, she eventually marries Louis.
Fanny, an ‘outsider’ with an independent income she earns through her writing, is the narrator. She takes us on a journey from Grez to Edinburgh, Robert’s birthplace, and to Bournemouth, where they meet Sir Percy Shelley and his wife, Lady Jane Shelley. Percy is the son of poet Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Frankenstein.
Lady Jane conducts a séance and conjures up the spirit of an erstwhile friend of Louis, Eugene Chantrelle, whose ailing wife Fanny had befriended. Eugene is undoubtedly the inspiration for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Lyons-Lees’ delightful Gothic murder mystery is a superb piece of historical fiction that gives us an insight into the mind of the man who also wrote Treasure Island, Kidnapped, A Child’s Garden of Verse, among others.
Louis and Fanny went on to have an exciting and adventurous life together. Their collaboration is, as they say, ‘the stuff of legends’ – in more ways than one.
Reviewed by Russell Thomson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Teaching English, Literature and creative writing in secondary schools has been my job for over 20 years. I really enjoy reading and studying literature with students and inspiring them to connect with their own creativity. I’ve also loved running a number of adult creative writing workshops.
I took a year off teaching in 2019 and worked as a bookseller at a local independent bookshop.
I first starting working with people who were experiencing homelessness when I was 17, volunteering at a place that provided food and support for those living on the streets.
I have a Masters in Writing and Literature. It was academic study but it didn’t feel like it as I was already head and shoulders deep in the subject matter.
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