The 1828 murders by William Burke and William Hare, hired by Dr. Robert Knox, served as the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Body-Snatcher." The two lodging house owners committed a series of sixteen murders that supplied Dr. Knox with the cadavers necessary for his anatomy lectures. These murders shook the country of Scotland and forced Parliament's hand to create the act that would put an end to the resurrectionist profession for good. This sketch by Robert Seymore appeared in the 1829 edition of The Murders of the Close, a novel published in London depicting the details of the horrific crimes that spanned a ten-month period.