Gabriel Utterson firsts hears about Mr. Hyde while on an evening walk with a friend. A sinister-looking man, Mr. Hyde is said to have violently trampled a young girl on the street for no reason. Not prone to gossip, Utterson leaves the matter be. But when he discovers that his good friend and client, Dr. Jekyll, paid off the girl's parents on Mr. Hyde's behalf, his inner alarm bells go off. What, exactly, is the connection between two such opposite people? Initially sold as a cheap and superficial read, Robert Louis Stevenson's novella, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1886), didn't receive its rightful praise until a review in The Times made the sales skyrocket. Soon, a popular stage production in London was forced to shut down because the audience found the play so believable, they suspected the actors and creator of being linked to the murders by the notorious, unidentified serial killer, Jack the Ripper.