Horror fiction Le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886), Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890), H. G. Wells' "The Invisible Man" (1897), and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897). Each of these novels and novellas created an enduring icon of horror seen in modern re-imaginings on the stage and screen. The proliferation of cheap periodicals, as early as the turn of the century, led to a boom in horror writing. For example, Gaston Leroux serialized his "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra" before it was a novel in 1910. One writer who specialized in horror fiction for
Robert Louis Stevenson M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said that Stevenson "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins". Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Scotland on 13 November 1850 to Thomas Stevenson (1818–87), a leading lighthouse engineer, and his wife Margaret Isabella (born Balfour, 1829–97). He was christened Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson. At about age 18, he changed the spelling of "Lewis" to "Louis", and he dropped "Balfour" in 1873. Lighthouse design was the family's profession; Thomas's father (Robert's grandfather) was famous civil engineer Robert Stevenson, and Thomas's