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Creating RebusEdinburgh’s Favourite Detective
Edinburgh – the Jekyll and Hyde cityIan Rankin’s Rebus novels have always examined Edinburgh’s dual identity, its ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ nature. Ian’s writing is greatly influenced by the stories of Robert Louis Stevenson and James Hogg. Hogg’s Gothic masterpiece The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, first published in 1824, examines the duality of good and evil, and is cited as an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Ian used the Jekyll and Hyde story as a template for his Rebus novels, with the city of Edinburgh itself being as much of a character as John Rebus. ‘I owe a great debt to Robert Louis Stevenson and to the city of his birth. In a way they both changed my life. Without Edinburgh’s split nature Stevenson might never have dreamt up Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and without Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde I might never have come up with my own alter ego Detective Inspector John Rebus.’ |
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