The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (AmazonClassics Edition) - Softcover

Dr. Henry Jekyll, fascinated by the dichotomy of good and evil, no longer wants to inhibit his dark side. He concocts a potion to create the alter ego of Mr. Edward Hyde. With the burden of evil placed on Hyde, Jekyll can now take pleasure in his immoral, nefarious fantasies—free of conscience and guilt. It’s when Hyde turns to murder that Jekyll realizes how monstrous his impulses are and how hard they are to suppress.

Exploring the nature of shame, repression, desire, and control, Stevenson’s story has so endured that “a Jekyll and Hyde personality” has become part of our lexicon in understanding our own—sometimes involuntary—duality.

Revised edition: Previously published as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this edition of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) traveled early and often, leaving behind his family business and an education in engineering and law to pursue a life of adventure. His first books included An Inland Voyage, which contained tales of his travels—by canoe—from Antwerp to northern France.

Marriage took Stevenson even farther from home, as he and his wife Fanny settled in California, where he wrote short stories such as “The Treasure of Franchard” and “Markheim,” featuring themes that would appear in later novels.

Stevenson’s health declined in the 1880s, but his work flourished. He wrote Treasure Island while bedridden with a likely case of tuberculosis, and he followed up with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Both were wildly popular when they were published in the 1880s, and they remain so today.