Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson

The classics were definitely my first literary love, and I would consider myself to have read quite a lot of them. But recently I thought about the ones I've never got round to reading (that I really should have!) and thought it was about time I did - these Penguin English Library editions are inexpensive and have lovely covers, so I made an order. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, sometimes known by the name The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or even just Jekyll and Hyde, is a short Gothic novella coming in at just 75 pages, so can be read in an hour or so. The Gothic genre was the focus of both my A-level literature essay as well as my Master's dissertation in part, so it's safe to say that I'm already a fan of the genre (think Shelley's Frankenstein, Richard Marsh's The Beetle, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Brontë's Jane Eyre, etc.).

This novella, first published in 1886, follows a London lawyer named J. G. Utterson, who investigates the strange goings on of his friend Henry Jekyll and a mysterious figure Edward Hyde, who frequents Jekyll's abode some of the time and gives off a general air of villainy. The story begins when Utterson's cousin, Richard Enfield, tells of how he witnessed the strange fellow Hyde trample a young girl, and paid him a sum of money to keep quiet about the incident and avoid creating a buzz. Utterson becomes suspicious when he discovers that Jekyll has recently made Hyde the sole beneficiary of his entire will and suspects blackmail on Hyde's part, though when he confronts Jekyll about it he is told that he must drop the matter and keep his nose out. Strangely, both Jekyll and Hyde are never seen at the same time, despite their clearly close acquaintance, and Utterson decides to investigate further.

This novel is gloomy, atmospheric and chilling. The aspect I enjoyed the most was the depiction of the foggy streets of London, and how this setting framed the search for the mysterious killer - so eerie! This story gave birth to the original idea of the split personality or alter ego, and the idea that someone could harbour such polarising good and evil tendencies which can appear subconsciously. The duality of human nature is explored in the extreme here: one moment Jekyll is the unassuming doctor, apparently completely incapable of significant violence; and the next he is the evil, id-driven Hyde. In modern popular culture, the split-personality can be seen in the character of the Hulk - which is based both on Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde. This is a short, gripping book so I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't already read it!