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
James Annesley scholarly journals on aspects of Annesley's life. A. Roger Ekirch and others have argued that the novel "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson was inspired by the story of James Annesley. They point to similarities such as an uncle kidnapping a fatherless and rightful heir at a young age and shipping him to the colonies, and the heir then returning and claiming his birthright from the villainous uncle. As Ekirch writes: It is inconceivable that Stevenson, a voracious reader of legal history, was unfamiliar with the saga of James Annesley, which by the time of "Kidnapped"’s publication in 1886 had already