"The Body Snatcher"Author Robert Louis

StevensonCountry ScotlandLanguage EnglishGenre(s) Short storyPublication type NewspaperPublisher Pall Mall GazetteMedia type Print (Newspaper)Publication date December 1884

The Body SnatcherFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe Body Snatcher (1884) is a shortstory by the Scottish author Robert LouisStevenson. First published in the Pall MallChristmas "Extra", in December 1884, thestory is based on characters in the employof Robert Knox, around the time of theBurke and Hare murders.

Plot summaryThe story begins with a group of friendssharing a few drinks, when an eminentdoctor, Wolfe MacFarlane, enters. One ofthe friends, Fettes, recognizes the nameand angrily confronts the new arrival.Although his friends all nd this behaviour suspicious, none of them canunderstand what might lie behind it .It transpires that MacFarlane and Fettes had attended medical school together,under the famous professor of anatomy, Robert Knox. Their duties included takingreceipt of bodies for dissection, and paying the pair of shifty and suspicious menwho supplied them.On one occasion, Fettes identies a body as that of a woman he knew, and isconvinced she has been murdered. But MacFarlane talks him out of reporting theincident, lest they are both implicated in the crime.Later, Fettes meets MacFarlane at a tavern, along with a man named Gray, whotreats MacFarlane in a rude manner. The following night, MacFarlane bringsGray's body along as a dissection sample. Although Fettes is now certain that hisfriend has committed murder, MacFarlane again convinces him to keep hissilence, persuading him that if he is not courageous enough to perform suchmanly deeds as these, he will end up as just another victim. The two men makesure the body is comprehensively dissected, destroying any forensic evidence.Fettes and MacFarlane continue their work, without being implicated in anycrime. However, when a shortage of bodies leaves their mentor in need, they aresent to a country churchyard to exhume a recently buried woman. As they aredriving back with the body seated between them, they begin to feel nervous andstop to take a better look. They are shocked to discover that the body betweenthem is that of Gray, which they thought they had destroyed.

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Film, TV and theatrical adaptationsThe 1945 lm The Body Snatcher, produced by Val Lewton and directed by RobertWise, starred Boris Karlo and Bela Lugosi.A TV version was made in 1966, directed by Toby Robertson.

External linksFull text (http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/body.htm)Cover of the Christmas 1884 edition of the Pall Mall Gazette(http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/britlit/rls/bsnatch.jpg)The Body Snatcher (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?83957) title listingat the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Body_Snatcher&oldid=589950772"Categories: 1884 short stories Short stories by Robert Louis StevensonGhost stories Works originally published in the Pall Mall GazetteShort stories adapted into lms

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The Body Snatcher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Bo...

2 of 2 2014-04-27 19:38