SPOILER ALERT:  Readers wishing to avoid "spoilers" should not consult this document before reading A Mystery in Scarlet, chapter XXIX (London Miscellany no. 10).

This family tree illustrates the relationships between the major historical and fictional characters that appear in A Mystery in Scarlet. It also reveals the dynastic ties that link these characters to other Stuart and Hanover historical figures, informing the usurpation plot.

Robert Louis Stevenson, celebrated author of Treasure Island  (1882-3), Kidnapped (1886), and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886) was a lifelong connoisseur of "penny dreadfuls": illustrated serial fiction that targeted working-class readers. In Stevenson's childhood, his nurse Alison Cunningham often read dreadfuls to him. In adulthood, Stevenson was haunted by one serial in particular. This was A Mystery in Scarlet by “Malcolm J. Errym,” the pseudonym of James Malcolm Rymer (1814-84).