The Body Snatchers and Other Stories

Written by Robert Louis Stevenson

Narrated by Alexander Spencer

The Body-Snatchers is a "crawler" in Stevenson's words, a tale of an avenging ghost and two medical students assigned to procure a corpse for an anatomy class. Includes: The Isle of Voices and The Waif Woman

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 16, 2008
• ISBN: 9781449802189

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish poet, novelist, and travel writer. Born the son of a lighthouse engineer, Stevenson suffered from a lifelong lung ailment that forced him to travel constantly in search of warmer climates. Rather than follow his father’s footsteps, Stevenson pursued a love of literature and adventure that would inspire such works as Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886), Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879).

Reviews for The Body Snatchers and Other Stories

[tonifgmamtc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

2.5 - 3 stars

These stories weren't bad but weren't anything special really either. I liked the Bottle Imp the most.

[missizicks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I whipped through this, as it is only 19 pages long. It’s Robert Louis Stevenson, so of course it’s well written. The evil done in The Body Snatcher is threefold: murder, desecrating graves in order to steal bodies, and corrupting the morals of others. It’s more a commentary on the lows people will stoop to in order to advance their own ambitions than a horror story, although Stevenson does try to swing it towards the supernatural with his twist at the end. One man’s hardness and self interest infects another more principled man into accepting the immoral actions they undertake. MacFarlane in this short story equates the ability to silence moral qualms in order to get ahead to acting like a lion rather than a lamb. Perhaps at the time it was written, not long after Burke and Hare were in the news, it was shocking, but I found it a little tame.

[rmmee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent collection of stories, most of which have you sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what the next twist will be. A couple of the longer stories are a little slower to start, but the author more than makes up for this by the conclusion.