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The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Penguin Popular Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: £2.00
Buy New: £0.01
You Save: £1.99 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 982
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 96
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7 x 4.1 x 0.3
ISBN: 0140620516
EAN: 9780140620511
ASIN: 0140620516
Publication Date: March 31, 1994
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW and IN STOCK - dispatched within 48 hours from the UK
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 SUPERB March 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
doesn't matter if you know the main 'twist'- everyone does and this doesn't really matter. this is extremely well written and a fantastic book.
The Strange Case July 3, 2007
3 out of 10 found this review helpful
When I Read This Book I Didn't Understand Much Until The Last Chapter Which Made This Book Very Enjoyable.
The story begins when the lawyer Gabriel John Utterson hears from his cousin Richard Enfield of an ambiguous, solitary, violent man called Hyde. This Hyde is said to have "trampled" over a girl whom he met on the road, leaving her bruised and terrified; whereupon Enfield ordered him, backed by several other people, to pay a fine to the girl's family. Hearing this tale, Utterson is perturbed; a friend of his, Dr Henry Jekyll, has made a will declaring that in the event of the doctor's death or disappearance, Hyde should inherit all his property. Suspecting trouble, Utterson seeks to investigate Hyde.
This investigation begins as a matter of curiosity and concern despite Dr Jekyll's assurances that Hyde is nothing to worry about. That changes when Hyde is seen committing a savage murder of a respected Member of Parliament, Sir Danvers Carew. As Utterson assists in the investigation of the crime, Jekyll becomes more and more reclusive and sombre. This leads Utterson to believe that Hyde has some influence over Jekyll, which he is using to conceal himself.
Eventually, Jekyll isolates himself in his laboratory gripped with an emotional burden that no one can comprehend. Another friend of Utterson's, Dr. Hastie Lanyon, suddenly dies of a horrific emotional shock with which Jekyll seems to be connected. Eventually, Jekyll's butler comes to Utterson to ask for his help to deal with a stranger who has somehow entered the locked lab and killed Jekyll. Together they discover that the stranger in the lab is Hyde, and they break in only to find Hyde dead by his own hand and Jekyll nowhere to be found.
Eventually, Utterson reads three letters left for him from his deceased friends. The first one is a will made out to his name. The second is from Lanyon and reveals that he witnessed firsthand that Hyde is none other than Jekyll physically transformed into the other identity by means of a potion of Jekyll's design.
The other letter is a confession from Jekyll which reveals what occurred when he realised that every man has two aspects within him - good and evil - which constantly wage war upon him. Acting on the theory that it was possible to polarise and separate these two aspects, he created a potion that could change a man into an embodiment of his evil side, thereby also making pure his good side. After using the potion on himself, Jekyll became physically smaller as his evil nature became predominant; this persona was called Edward Hyde. The potion did not work as planned, in that the shape-changing was successful, but the identity of Jekyll remained unchanged while adding an alternate character who was purely evil. After a few trial runs as Hyde, Jekyll soon began to undergo the change regularly in order to indulge in all the forbidden pleasures that he would never commit otherwise. However, the Hyde aspect himself began to grow strong beyond Jekyll's ability to control it with a counter-agent. Eventually, Jekyll wakes up in bed one day to discover that he has turned into Hyde overnight. He resolves to give up Hyde for good, but the allure proves too strong to resist, and after two months he takes the potion once more.
This time, Hyde does not just indulge himself; he commits murder, and can no longer be seen in public for fear of being recognised and sent to the gallows. This reassures Jekyll, and he attempts to redeem himself for the actions of Hyde by being charitable. However, as a result of vainglorious thought, once more he undergoes the transformation, without the aid of his potion, in a park in broad daylight. He manages to avoid capture by finding a hotel room. He writes to Lanyon, asking him to fetch from his study the drawer in which the counter-agent is found.
Lanyon complies, and Hyde shows up at his house unrecognised. He takes the potion, as although he has begun to despise Jekyll, he fears recognition and the resulting death even more. He changes into Jekyll before Lanyon's astonished eyes. Heartbroken by this shocking revelation, Lanyon wastes away and dies.
Jekyll finds that he can now only remain in his original form with the potion in his system. Eventually Jekyll ran out of the unique components to the potion, and in particular a "salt" of which he had initially acquired quite a large quantity. New supplies of this salt did not produce an effective potion, which he initially attributed to an impurity in the new supplies, but finally concluded that it was the initial order that was impure, and that an "unknown impurity" in it was vital to its effectiveness. As he had no way of acquiring any more of this impure salt, he was doomed to remain as Hyde permanently.
In the end, Jekyll decided to write the confession letter, and he finally "dies" as he transforms completely into Hyde. Hyde commits suicide, through poison, when Utterson and Jekyll's butler try to force their way into the laboratory.
Hope This Helped
 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde May 16, 2005
6 out of 21 found this review helpful
First time reading this book, it gave me a hard time knowing what was happening. But as I continued reading the book, I had to really keep in mind who each character was and had to know their part in the book. Because without knowing who is who, you wouldn't be able to understand what is happening. Knowing that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the same person who transform into another. Mr. Hyde who is the evil side of Dr. Jekyll and appears to be seen only at night. Mr. Utterson the lawyer is an old friend and he notice something that had to be wrong because of Dr. Jekyll was not being himself lately. At the end Mr. Utterson, could not believe what he saw and did not know to believe or deny what he saw. When I reached "Henry Jekyll's Full Statement Of The Case," that was when it got really interested. Also it helped me a lot to understand and know what happened and somewhat how it all happened. And so I would say the last chapter was the best and that was what made the book interesting. When reading it the second time you would know what happened in between of what the narrator said and Dr. Jekyll said.
for another interpretation October 8, 2004
6 out of 26 found this review helpful
I suppose that no one ever really understood the cryptic point that Stevenson wanted to put forward with this book. Both Freud and Jung were mentioned more than once, just to wonder about the fact that the author anticipated them, in matter of inquiring the unconscious. Since no one anticipate nothing (followers just reinterpret someone), Stevenson didn't antedate the two famous psychologists; his were supposed to be a caustic critic of his society, in this case he implicit mentioned the abuse of alcohol. Try to substitute the potion of doctor Jekyll with few pints of beer; this parallelism may sound banal and trivial, but who can't say that an abuse of a alcohol may possibly transfigure a person, both physically and psychologically, into someone different, unfortunately most of the times worse end more evil?
Maybe the auric ring that surround a classic it's just the possibility to be read it without any prejudice.
 Good but not great May 10, 2004
5 out of 15 found this review helpful
This is a good book and makes a good job of describing the Good Vs Evil battle that goes on inside all of us. However all the text detailing this lies in Dr Jekyll's "confession" which appears at the end of the book. The story up to that point details other characters who worry at the change in Jekyll and their shared loathing of Mr Hyde.In other words, the best part of the book is told in a kind of flash-back which I feel works far better in films than it does in books. Had the story been presented in the proper chronological order, it would have been far better. Nonetheless this is a good story with a strong moral message.
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