WRITERS UNDER THE INFLUENCE: Robert Louis Stevenson, Stephen King & Cocaine (Ch 1)
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Welcome to the debut episode of Hollyword, a new podcast that explores the lives of history’s greatest story-tellers. Our first season, ‘Writers Under the Influence’, looks at authors whose lives and careers are, in the popular imagination, entangled with their substance addictions.
The first episode takes on Robert Louis Stevenson (RLS), author of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Stephen King, author of The Shining. RLS and Stephen are separated by a century, yet their journeys share many parallels. Aside from their very serious cocaine dependencies, both were reductively labelled as writers of penny dreadfuls, and both were phenomenally successful and popular, to the point where their populism affected their critical reputations. RLS and Stephen were dismissed as ‘minor’ authors not worthy of the respect accorded to their contemporaries. Only since the end of the twentieth, start of the twenty-first century have they have been welcomed back into the literary fold and granted the ‘serious writer’ reputations so many fans feel they deserve.
CREDITS -
This episode was written and narrated by Key Whiskey. Special thanks to Jarryd Doyle for editing the audio and voicing Robert Louis Stevenson, Stephen King, and other voices featured throughout.
Robert Louis Stevenson (RLS) 1850-1894
Stephen King 1947-
READ -
Now you know the writers, get to know their writing…
Robert Louis Stevenson
An Inland Voyage (1878); Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879); Treasure Island (1883); The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Kidnapped (1886); The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses (1888); The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale (1889); Weir of Hermiston (1896).
Stephen King
Carrie (1974); Salem’s Lot (1975); The Shining (1977); Night Shift (1978); The Stand (1978); The Dead Zone (1979); Pet Sematary (1983); It (1986); Misery (1987); Needful Things (1991); Gerald’s Game (1992); Dolores Claiborne (1992); Rose Madder (1995); The Green Mile (1996); The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999); Hearts in Atlantis (1999); Doctor Sleep (2013); End of Watch (2016); The Outsider (2018); The Institute (2019).
WATCH -
Too lazy to read? Here are the film adaptations…
Robert Louis Stevenson
The Body Snatcher (1945) - starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) - starring John Barrymore; Jekyll & Hyde (1990) - starring Michael Caine; Treasure Island (1990) - starring Charlton Heston; Mary Reilly (1996) - starring Julia Roberts.
Stephen King
Stand By Me (1986) - starring River Phoenix; The Shining (1980) - starring Jack Nicholson; The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - starring Tim Robbins; The Green Mile (1999) - starring Tom Hanks; IT (2017) - starring Bill Skarsgård; Carrie (1976) - starring Sissy Spacek; Misery (1990) - starring Kathy Bates; Dolores Claiborne (1995) - starring Kathy Bates; 1408 (2007) - starring John Cusack; Pet Semetary (2019) - starring Jason Clarke; The Running Man (1987) - starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; The Dead Zone (1983) - starring Christopher Walken.
SOURCES -
Cocaine
Bonnet, Philippe. ‘Cocaine for soldiers & opiates for teething babies: exploring the history of drug use’. BBC, 10 Mar. 2018, www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/966b1bdd-69ff-4de0-9c39-d9276eba706b
Hoffmeister, Peter Brown. ‘Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Writers’. Huffpost, 11 Aug. 2011, www.huffpost.com/entry/performance-enhancing-dru_b_923297
Naish, Natalia & Scott, Jeremy. Coke: The Biography. Biteback Publishing, London, 2013.
Tomicki, Hadley. ‘A Brief History of Cocaine in Polite Society’. Urban Daddy, 31 July 2017, https://www.urbandaddy.com/articles/40182/a-brief-history-of-cocaine-in-polite-society
Robert Louis Stevenson
Balfour, Graham. The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, vol. 2. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1901.
Campbell, Duncan. ‘California, here I come’. The Guardian, 23 Apr. 2000, www.theguardian.com/books/2000/apr/22/books.guardianreview
Chilton, Martin. ‘Robert Louis Stevenson: 10 strange facts about Jekyll and Hyde author’. The Telegraph, 3 Dec. 2015, www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/10-facts-about-robert-louis-stevenson-jekyll-hyde-author/
Comitini, Patricia. ‘The Strange Case of Addiction in Robert Louis Stevenson's “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”’. Victorian Review, vol. 38, no. 1, 2012, pp. 113–131. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23646857
Dalymple, Theodore. ‘The Strange Case of Robert Louis Stevenson’. The Telegraph, 3 Dec. 2014, hwww.telegraph.co.uk/culture/9135680/The-strange-case-of-Robert-Louis-Stevenson.html
Dick, Sandra. ‘Drugs, brothers and wild rages: The two faces of the Scots writer Robert Louis Stevenson and hit show Jekyll and Hyde’. Daily Record, 2 Nov. 2015, http://www.scotlandnow.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/drugs-brothels-wild-rages-two-6747610
Dryden, Linda. ‘How Robert Louis Stevenson’s reputation was shipwrecked by his inner circle’. The Conversation, 4 Mar. 2016, https://theconversation.com/how-robert-louis-stevensons-reputation-was-shipwrecked-by-his-inner-circle-55666
Dury, Richard. ‘Robert Louis Stevenson’s Life’. RLS Website, http://robert-louis-stevenson.org/life/
Ezard, John. ‘The story of Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde and Fanny, the angry wife who burned the first draft’. The Guardian, 25 Oct. 2000, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/oct/25/books.booksnews
Goodwin, Karin. ‘Drug took Stevenson face to face with Hyde’. The Times, 20 Mar. 2005, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/drug-took-stevenson-face-to-face-with-hyde-0m2w7dx6swg
Guigueno, Vincent. ‘Engineering the Words: Robert Louis Stevenson and the Bell Rock Lighthouse’. The Yale University Library Gazette, vol. 80, no. 1/2, 2005, pp. 57–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40859686
Harman, Claire. Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography. Harper Perennial, London, 2005.
Harvey, Alexander. ‘Life of Robert Louis Stevenson’, in Stevenson, Robert Louis. A Children’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods. Chatto and Windus, Current Literature, New York, 1906.
Livesey, Margot. ‘The Double Life of Robert Louis Stevenson’. The Atlantic, Nov. 1994, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/11/the-double-life-of-robert-louis-stevenson/306474/
Mackay, Neil. ‘The strange double life of Robert Louis Stevenson’. The Herald Scotland, 11 Nov. 2018, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17215814.the-strange-double-life-of-robert-louis-stevenson/
Maixner, Paul, editor. Robert Louis Stevenson: The Critical Heritage. Routledge, London, 1971.
Overton, Jacqueline M. The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1933.
‘Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)’. Bell Rock Lighthouse, www.bellrock.org.uk/stevensons/stevenson_rl.htm
‘Robert Louis Stevenson: The Life’. Robert Louis Stevenson Museum, stevensonmuseum.org/robert-louis-stevenson/the-life/
Stevenson, Robert Louis & Colvin, Sidney. The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson to His Family and Friends - Vol. 1. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1899.
Van de Grift Sanchez, Nellie. The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson. Chatto and Windus, London, 1920.
Williamson, Kevin. ‘Was Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll & Hyde a simple story of good and evil?’. Bella Caledonia, 13 Nov. 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20150321171212/https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2012/11/13/an-essay-for-rls-day-duality-come-in-your-time-is-up/
Bell Rock Lighthouse, built in 1810 by Robert Stevenson, RLS’s grandfather.
Stephen King
Beahm, George W. Stephen King from A to Z: An Encyclopaedia of His Life and Work, Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, 1998.
Bloom, Harold. ‘For the World of Letters, It’s a Horror’. Los Angeles Times, 19 Sep. 2003, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-sep-19-oe-bloom19-story.html
Borders, Meredith. ‘Over My Dead Body: What “Stand By Me” Reveals About Stephen King’. Birth. Movies. Death, 23 Jun. 2016, https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/06/23/over-my-dead-body-what-stand-by-me-reveals-about-stephen-king
Ciabattari, Jane. ‘Is Stephen King a great writer?’. BBC, 31 Oct. 2014, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20141031-is-stephen-king-a-great-writer
Dubner, Stephen J. ‘What Is Stephen King Trying To Prove?’. The New York Times Magazine, 13 Aug. 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/13/magazine/what-is-stephen-king-trying-to-prove.html
Fuhr, Paul. ‘Stephen King’s Scariest Monster: Addiction’. The Fix, 19 Sep. 2017, https://www.thefix.com/stephen-kings-scariest-monster-addiction
Kimberlin, Madison, ‘Stephen King: Alcoholism, Drug Addiction and Fame’. Detox to Rehab, 30 Mar. 2020, https://detoxtorehab.com/celebrity/stephen-king-alcoholism-drug-addiction-and-fame
King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2000.
King, Stephen. ‘Personal History: On Impact’. The New Yorker, 12 Jun. 2000, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/06/19/on-impact.
King, Tabitha; DeFilippo, Marsha. ‘The Author’. StephenKing.com, 9 May 2008, https://stephenking.com/the-author/
Rolls, Albert. Stephen King: A Biography. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut, 2009.
Young, Kirsty, host. ‘Desert Island Discs: Stephen King’. Desert Island Discs, BBC, 24 Nov. 2006, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0093ttz
Stephen King in recovery following the van accident on 19 Jun. 1999.
MUSIC -
The music used in this episode, with the exception of the intro and outro, was sourced from royalty-free music libraries such as the Free Music Archive and YouTube’s Audio Library. The intro features an excerpt from Margaret Fielding’s ‘I Could Write a Book’. The outro includes an excerpt from Artie Shaw and His Orchestra’s ‘I Could Write a Book’.
Discography
”Kreuzberg Nights” by Futuremono
“Myth of Parcival” by Lobo Loco
“Dance of Deception” by Kevin MacLeod
“Lying Here Helpless” by Daniel Birch
“The Machine Assembly” by The Whole Other
“Forbidden to Ask” by Unheard Music Concepts
“Paris Ballade” by Dana Boulé
“Jesse’s Carnival Waltz” by The Great North Sound Society
“No 4 Piano Journey” by Esther Abrami
“American Coot” by Chad Crouch
“Ether Oar” by The Whole Other
“Hawaiian Hula Melody” by Johnny Nobles Hawaiians
“Brain - Instrumental Retro” by Lobo Loco
“The Vampire’s Coffin” by The Haunted Corpse
“Backwoods BBQ” by Chris Haugen
“Hurts So Good Blues” by Unicorn Heads
“Drag Race” by Track Tribe
“Death Valley” by Lobo Loco
“Kessy Sings Endless” by Lobo Loco
“Synthwave” by Ryan Andersen
“Aletheia Unforgetting” by Devon Church
“First Light” by Futuremono
“Gnossienne No 1 (Erik Satie)” by Olelé Brut
“Exlibris” by Kosta T
“Divider” by Chris Zabriskie
Other Audio
Clip from The Shining (1980)
Clip from the Misery (1990) trailer
