The Body Snatcher

About “The Body Snatcher”

"The Body Snatcher" is a short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It was first published in The Pall Mall Gazette in December 1884. The story's characters were inspired by real-life criminals who worked for the surgeon Robert Knox during the time of the Burke and Hare murders in 1828. Stevenson drew from historical events to create a narrative centered on the illegal trade of corpses. The story reflects the dark underbelly of 19th-century Edinburgh, where body snatching was a common practice due to the demand for cadavers in medical schools. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)