Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), 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. Perhaps this was her way to get to experience them herself, on paid time. In adulthood, Stevenson was haunted by one serial in particular. This was A Mystery in Scarlet by “Malcolm J.