Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale takes to intriguing extremes the near-universal belief that each person has a good and bad 'sides'. First published in 1886, the story is justly famous - it has inspired countless stage and film adaptations, and 'Jekyll and Hyde' has entered the English language and an epithet for someone whose personality oscillates between extremes. Stevenson's tale was inspired by the true story of Edinburgh cabinet maker, Deacon Brodie, a respected businessman by day and thief by night. Brodie was caught and hung in 1788, on a gallows he himself had paid for the previous year.