10 things you didn't know about Jekyll and Hyde

7: Burning passions

The first draft of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was actually burnt shortly after it was completed, in circumstances that are still controversial to this day.

For a long time it was believed that Stevenson burnt the book on the advice of his wife, but recent research has suggested that she tossed it into the fire herself. Depending on which scholar you believe, she either did it because she felt it was too sexually explicit or simply not well written enough. Still, it didn't put Stevenson off. Like some kind of unstoppable word machine, he simply sat down and wrote the second, published version in a matter of days.

8: Jack and Jekyll

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was so successful that it actually influenced the investigation of Jack the Ripper.

The story helped inspire the still-popular notion that the serial killer was an aristocratic gentleman indulging his dark side. However, this had unfortunate consequences for Victorian actor Richard Mansfield, who proved so effective as Jekyll and Hyde in a stage version of Stevenson's novel that police began to suspect him of actually being the Ripper. Things eventually got so bad that Mansfield was forced, as a PR exercise, to do charity work to raise money to help former prostitutes.