The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
First published in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a cornerstone of Gothic fiction and one of literature's most enduring studies of the divided self. Set in the fog-bound streets of Victorian London, it unfolds as a mystery pieced together by the sober lawyer Gabriel John Utterson.
Utterson grows uneasy over the affairs of his old friend, the respected Dr Henry Jekyll, whose will leaves everything to a repellent stranger named Edward Hyde. Hyde inspires instinctive loathing in everyone who meets him, and moves through the city leaving cruelty in his wake. As Utterson digs into the bond between the upright doctor and the brutal Hyde, he edges toward a secret that defies reason.
More than a thriller, the novella is a parable about the duality of human nature — the respectable surface and the appetites it conceals — and the cost of trying to sever one from the other. Compact, atmospheric, and relentlessly tense, it has given the English language a byword for the war between good and evil inside a single person.
A respected London physician of good standing, concealing a private torment.
The reserved, loyal lawyer whose patient investigation frames the mystery.
A repellent, violent stranger who inspires dread in all who meet him and holds an inexplicable claim on Jekyll.
Jekyll's old friend and fellow physician, estranged over a scientific dispute; his letter reveals what he witnessed.
Utterson's kinsman, whose account of a late-night cruelty opens the case.
