Stevenson's wife burnt Jekyll and Hyde 'nonsense'

Robert Louis Stevenson is one of Britain's most respected and enduring authors but his wife was less than impressed by his literary talents.

Robert Louis Stevenson is one of Britain's most respected and enduring authors but his wife was less than impressed by his literary talents.

After reading the first draft of his most famous book, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Fanny Stevenson decided it was such "utter nonsense" that she set fire to it.

The ignominious ending to the first draft of the novel has been revealed in a letter to the one-legged dramatist, poet and critic WE Henley (on whom Treasure Island's Long John Silver was based). It lay forgotten in the attic of Mr Henley's descendants for 115 years.

Mrs Stevenson, who was protective of her sick husband but also his fiercest critic, said wrote in 1885: "He wrote nearly a quire full of utter nonsense. Fortunately he has forgotten all about it now, and I shall burn it after I show it to you. He said it was his greatest work."

The letter is expected to fetch up to £1,500 when it is auctioned at Phillips, in London, on 17 November. Liz Merry, the head of the book department, said: "This should end speculation about what happened to the first draft of Dr Jekyll - it seems clear she incinerated it.

"It's a very romantic tale.Fanny was a very important critic in his life and it's my belief she thought Dr Jekyll, which was partly based on a dream, was not worthy of him."

But the discovery of the letter creates another mystery.Was Stevenson's first attempt at his most successful novel indeed "nonsense"?

Later in the year she burnt the draft, Mrs Stevenson wrote that her husband had returned to the theme and that "to stop him seems to annoy him to such a degree that I am letting him alone ... but I fear it will only be energy wasted, as all his late work has been."

Stevenson, an engineer's son, was born in Edinburgh in 1850, and died of a brain haemorrhage on 3 December having written novels that included Kidnapped, Treasure Island and The Master of Ballantrae.