Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

This short novel, published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94), may well be more familiar in its many stage, film and television adaptations than in its original form, while 'Jekyll and Hyde' has become the shorthand for a character who seems to have a 'split personality'. Stevenson claimed that the main features of the story came to him in a dream, and he wrote it very rapidly, though ill and bedridden at the time. Priced at one shilling (the genre of macabre and horror stories was known as the 'shilling shocker'), it was an immediate success. Though not the first of Stevenson's works to explore the notion of the divided self, in a period where increasing concern was felt about the possible negative sides of discoveries in both the physical and biological sciences, the story clearly struck a chord, and it has remained popular ever since.

Everyone has a dark side. Dr Jekyll has discovered the ultimate drug. A chemical that can turn him into something else. Suddenly, he can unleash his deepest cruelties in the guise of the sinister Hyde. Transforming himself at will, he roams the streets of fog-bound London as his monstrous alter-ego. It seems he is master of his fate. It seems he is in complete control. But soon he will discover that his double life comes at a hideous price...

The book which put Stevenson's name in the mouth of the ' man in the street,' lifted him at a single bound to a place among men of the time and, by the still greater sensation which it created in America, led to the large income which soon afterwards he drew from the United States. The ear of a great public to whom his earlier writings were unknown was captured by this intense picture of the elements of good and evil in man's nature. It was hailed from pulpits and in the religious press as a great moral parable; though its moral quality, on close analysis, is seen to be more an illusion, due to the art of its writing, than the essence of the fable. Reduced to its simplest formula Jekyll and Hyde is a cry of terror at the potency for evil latent in the human soul. Such moral force as it has depends upon its assault on the nerves, not on its appeal to the heart. If not thus interpreted by the preachers of the time, it yet served the purpose of moving their hearers by the spectacle of the evil partner in the human ego, indulged in a moment ' when virtue slumbered,' coming in the end to destroy the good.

Bold visionary, Henry Jekyll, believes he can use his scientific knowledge to divide a person into two beings--one of pure good and one of pure evil. Working tirelessly in his secret laboratory, concocting a potion that would tear at the core of what makes a man human, he eventually succeeds--but only halfway. Instead of separating the good and evil halves, Jekyll isolates only the latter. What seems at first a relief to the doctor becomes a nightmare as he loses control of the transformation. His friends feel Jekyll will waste away and fear the worst. Can Jekyll undo what he has done? Or will it change things forever?

How thin is the line between good and evil? Discover the classic tale of gothic horror Dr Jekyll has been experimenting with his identity. He has developed a drug which separates the two sides of his nature and allows him occasionally to abandon himself to his most corrupt inclinations as the monstrous Mr Hyde. But gradually he begins to find that the journey back to goodness becomes more and more difficult, and the risk that Mr Hyde will break free entirely from Dr Jekyll's control puts all of London in grave peril.

This intriguing novel, both fantasy thriller and moral allegory, depicts the struggle of two opposing personalities -- one essentially good, the other evil -- for the soul of one man.

A London physician leads a double life when he discovers a drug that alters his appearance and disposition. In addition, stories of the supernatural are included.