Okay, I had to fudge on the cover for this book. The version I read was from Arcadia House and published in 1950. It held the novel Kidnapped as well. I could not find a picture of it like I did with Oscar Wilde.
Anywho, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written by Robert Louis Stevenson and published in 1886. This was a novella technically.
It's about a Doctor Henry Jekyll who created a solution from different compounds that transformed him into his purely evil side called Edward Hyde. Only somewhere it went wrong and the doc lost control of his metamorphosis.
Hyde did all the doctor wished he could do. It's almost like he wanted to be Dorian Grey only he didn't want to own up to his dark desires. He just wanted to reap the benefits and live vicariously through his other persona.
I was somewhat disappointed by the fact that most of the actions were after the fact. I was hoping I to live through the adventure, but that was not the case. We get to see the aftereffects through Gabriel Utterson, Jekyll's lawyer and friend.
Other than that, it was an interesting book, which put me into the mood to read Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin and watch the movie with Julia Roberts and John Malkovich.
This story has always perked me. I liked the Mary Reilly, and have seen adaptations, but never read the book. I ought to fix that.
ReplyDeleteI love the Gothics, and Jekyl and Hyde is one of my favorites!
ReplyDeleteYeah, the telling of the story surprised me as well, but it's a good one. I read it years ago but I remember the edition I read because it included two shorter stories Stevenson wrote in the last couple of years of his life, which showed him moving into still darker territory. They were excellent!
ReplyDeleteHow is that movie? I've never watched it.
ReplyDeleteIt's always interesting to see how storytelling has evolved over the years. Take Anna Karenina, with its endless descriptions of Russian farms and prairies, or Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" and its ghastly run-on sentences. Neither one would get published today without a massive rewrite.