The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Written by Robert Louis Stevenson

Narrated by John Sessions

Both a cracking tale of horror and a deeply audacious account of the human psyche, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has continued to thrill and fascinate since it was first published in 1886. Dr Jekyll wants to rid his soul of evil, and in doing so creates the monstrous alter ego Mr Hyde. As time goes on he slides increasingly into this other side of his personality until it finally takes over, with disastrous consequences. As the determined Mr Utterson races to uncover the secret of the good Dr Jekyll’s sinister new companion, the cosy Victorian world of wealth and comfort is discovered to be under siege.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
• Release date: Sep 30, 1996
• ISBN: 9789629545635

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born on 13 November 1850, changing his second name to ‘Louis’ at the age of eighteen. He has always been loved and admired by countless readers and critics for ‘the excitement, the fierce joy, the delight in strangeness, the pleasure in deep and dark adventures’ found in his classic stories and, without doubt, he created some of the most horribly unforgettable characters in literature and, above all, Mr. Edward Hyde.

Reviews for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

[margaretfield · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

might be the best crafted short story I've ever read

[alejandrademena · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read it for my Great Books class in college. It is, for sure, a little weird, but it is interesting and it is a great book to find the patterns of contemporary literature. It has some mystery, it is sometimes frightening and it has a magical detail that I really liked.

[ameise1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was an amusing listening. What first began as completely harmless showed itself with time as a transformation comedy of the first kind. I like how Stevenson leads the reader very slowly to the two protagonists, in order then to give an extra tension with a fulminate turn of the story.

[joe73-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great story. Should have been a bit longer. But all things considered I can really respect the writer for keeping it short. In many cases writers from this period tend to go on and on. If Stoker would have penned this it would have never ended and rolled over into the realm of politics. The story was very effective in showing the division between the personalities. This was a relief from Prince Otto which I read in the same day.

[glennbell_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A classic tale of the duality of our personality. Although this is a short novel it is an interesting story and is presented in an intriguing manner. While the story is science fiction it touches on the reality of our decision making. Choices between acting out of altruism or selfish desires haunt us in our daily lives as we usually cannot have everything. Our decisions, which involve trade-offs can be influenced by drugs as in the story but in a less drastic manner.

[max3tyrone · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

With a classic name in literature, one should read this story of duality sans the preconception of it; otherwise, this will kind of seem boring due to the myriad of other stories akin to the theme. While I am quick to admit that a general audience of today will have a hard time finishing this novel due to the lack of today's immediacy, I will too admit that I did not enjoy this novel as much as any other story of good versus evil. I appreciated that it came out in its time; however, I personally look for something more, something beyond good and evil, something beyond duality. The story overall didn't do me much service, neither: I felt that everything hung on Dr. Jekyll's account at the end of the novel, which gave a great insight on the struggle between two moral magnets. However, to read a story as something witnessed, then something explained, can either resonate well with me or not. The witnessing of madness in this novel left much to be desired, at least on my account.A great read if you're starting on the duality of man.

[john257hopper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a re-read of this classic 19th century novella which has been the inspiration behind so many spin-offs since. It is a taut and atmospheric piece of writing, and the conclusion that Jekyll and Hyde are one and the same, two sides of the same being, only becomes evident near the end - it is hard for us to understand how this would have shocked and thrilled the reader in 1886, so familiar has the Jekyll and Hyde motif become.

[librarycin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

People have been wondering where Dr. Jekyll has been disappearing to and why the horrible Mr. Hyde seems to be such a good “friend” to Jekyll. This was ok. It might have been better if I didn't know what was going on, just for having heard what the story's about. But then, maybe not. It just wasn't really holding my interest. At least it was short and quick to read.

[ffortuna_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Small but incredibly effective. Like, I know Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. Everyone knows that. I still felt actually horrified at the reveal of that fact, because Stevenson did such a good job drawing the main characters and the people surrounding them. Like The Picture of Dorian Gray, (Wilde was an admirer of the book), it explores inner and outer natures by dividing them, showing what people might do if it would never be found out and never physically affect them, and it's all the more compelling because their flaws start out so small and relatable. Jekyll didn't suffer from a deep dark secret at first, he just didn't want anyone to know about his small flaws. Excellent for the Halloween season, and especially good read in company with Dorian Gray, because both are so complete, so layered, and so subtle where it counts.

[msaucier818 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another classic that I surprisingly enjoyed. This story is well known to anyone who has followed anything to do with pop-culture, but as is often the case, the original was not all that similar to the many different adaptations. The story is basically about Dr. Jeckyll and his journey into becoming two people. Mr. Hyde is obviously his evil side, and the story simply goes through how it came to be and the torments of the Dr. in dealing with the transition. A good story that looks into the human mind and its through process. It does not evolve into any comic book type of story and Mr. Hyde is not a tragic character.

This was a super-quick read and I would recommend it to any fans of literature.

[pennsylady · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very good audio Oct reread ...."split personality"....."dissociative identity disorder" ...psychological thriller

[smiler69 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I remember reading this for the first time when I was a schoolgirl in 1982 and being tremendously impressed with the story about a Dr. Jekyll who invents a special potion which transforms him into his horrible alter-ego Mr. Hyde and goes so far as changing him physically into a shorter man, uglier and with a bad and violent character. I remember being under the spell of the gothic horror elements of the story, but somehow, reading it again this month didn't have the same charm at all. Not quite sure why. For one thing, the first half of the story is told by someone else, and we don't quite get to know what has happened to Jekyll nor Hyde, and I supposed I was impatient getting to the goods, so to speak. I'll try revisiting it in another 30 years and perhaps meet with better success next time!

[mmmmtoasty · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully written and exquisitely deep, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde turns out to be more than just a horror book set out to disturb people suffering from OCD and Christians alike with its implication that self-control in relation to our temptations and impulses is one of the only things keeping us from turning into human equivalents of D&D pleasure-seeking demons. There's a bit more to this idea of course, as certain factors add for some ambiguity and complexity, such as Nabakov's mentioning in the intro to the book that Dr. Jekyll is neither completely "good", nor is Hyde completely "evil", with one of the more interesting lines in the book, at least in its relation to Freudian theory, being Hyde's response of "with pleasure" to someone asking a favor of him. There are other interesting aspects as well, such as the fact that Hyde's "evil" acts were most often not out of pleasure (or perhaps never?), but rather out of impulsive fits of rage. This is one quip I have with the book, as it's never really explained why Hyde goes into his "causeless angers", other than a small diatribe talking about him treating his victims like an angered child interacting with a toy. It's possible I may have missed the attribution to his killings, but otherwise, a killer without motive other than "hulk smash" at random moments of impatience, because that's apparently how we all naturally are, is a bit uninteresting. Thesis aside, other things worth mentioning are the incredible use of perspective changing, which may certainly be a surprise even to those (i.e., most) who know the basic idea of the story; the almost, once again as Nabokov says, poetic quality of prose at times; the great, dark, European, Victorian scene setting; and the perhaps uncommon combination of horror and murder mystery genres. Good stuff overall and certainly chilling at times, would definitely say it's one of the better classics I've read and enjoyed, even if many of it's psychological claims are outdated, or not even remotely something I and some others would agree with in certain aspects.

[emhromp2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked this book. It is a classic that deserves to be read and it took me about an hour to read it. Now I wonder why it took me so long to start reading it in the first place. Because it is a classic, I already knew what the end was going to be like, I already knew that Jekyll and Hyde were the same person, but that didn't mean I wasn't a bit shocked at the moral of this story. I like the way the story is built up and I like the main character, Mr Utterson as well. It is a story that lingers in your mind after you've finished it.

[heidijane_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book included the more famous story of Dr Jekyll, who has concocted a mixture which turns him into his more evil counterpart, Mr Hyde, but also contained a number of other macabre and terrible tales of bodysnatchers and ghosts.It is difficult to come to this book without some sort of preconceptions, as through films and other cultural references, it is hard not to be vaguely familiar with the story. When the tale originally appeared, it would have been fresh and new, and because the terrible secret isn't revealed to the end, it would have kept people guessing the whole way through.That said, this book still managed to send a shiver down my spine on occasion and still thrilled me and wanted to make me read on, so that speaks volume for the powerful writing, that survives through the decades. In particular the exploration of identity, and the excitement of being able to split the evil part of yourself away from the rest, is very vivid, but the message is clear in the fact that the evil part eventually takes over. I would certainly recommend this book, and I'm glad that I finally got a chance to read it

[scottcholstad · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A classic later surpassed by many but at the time, very original and quite good.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Een Victoriaanse klassieker, terecht. Beklemmend geschreven, met een mooie opbouw.

[shahnareads · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

One of those 'classics' on everyones to be read lists.
It's alright.

[multifaceted_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book isn't bad; it's a short read, and doesn't go too much in depth. But I think the fact that, reading it today as one of the classics in literature that EVERYONE knows the story of, even though most of us haven't really read it, has really and truly spoiled it for me. I tried to transport myself back to Victorian England. I tried to think of the times where "penny dreadful" suspense and horror novels were rampant, and books like "The String of Pearls" (about and characters like Sweeney Todd) could be bought, or, later real life characters like "Jack the Ripper" could be read about in the sensationalistic newspapers. I tried to keep in mind the sentiments and misconceptions of the time about death and character. But for all of that, the suspense of this novel was ruined by my having been inundated with various versions of the story since I was a kid. I imagine it really could have been something, though, at the time it was published. After all, I do appreciate the author's picking out the calm, objective character (Utterson) to tell the story, in order to make the suspense build up that much more and make the other characters in it come across that much more fantastical. Having read a good bit of "Gothic fiction" again lately, I find this fits nicely in with fantastical, almost campfire-story-like books such as Dracula, Frankenstein and even the aforementioned String of Pearls. But overall it's not so strange and transporting as stories like The Monk, The Castle of Otranto, or even Faust. But then again, who knows? Perhaps if I had never heard of Jekyll or Hyde before this, I would put this book in with the latter group, too. Although I tend to think that in order to do that, Stevenson would have had to elaborate a little more on the differences between Jekyll and Hyde, and would have had to go into the psychological aspect quite a bit farther (and really, he only touched the tip of the iceberg here).

[alexthehunn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first read this tale as a child (I was a precocious and voracious reader). I was in my stage of being fascinated by horror movies so I couldn't wait to read this. I was simultaneously delighted and disappointed. The disappointement stemmed from the lack of lurid action. I wanted a monster. But I was enthralled by the notion that psychological monsters might be even worse. I was only in 5th grade - I had never thought of that. And of course, there was the masterful writing. While I didn't read just junk, I also hadn't been exposed to much great writing and this was among the best I'd read up to that point. It was well constructed and masterfully handled. I couldn't have expressed it such at the time, but I knew I was reading something good.

[clancy.coonradt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great piece of literature. Really interesting way of keeping the reader blind to very key pieces of information that would allow for easier identification of potential threats and climaxes. Really enjoy RLS and look forward to reading more of his work.

[icemaiden786 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very creepy story. I didn't know what to expect with this book when I first read it. Everyone knows the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde concept but reading it was different. It wasn't what I expected and I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing. Either way I thought it was an interesting, eerie novel and worth reading at least once. Give it a go.

[crazy4reading · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I finally finished this book. The only reason it took me so long to read this book is because I had some ER books that needed to be read before I could finish this book. I am glad I waited until I finished those books to read this one. I was able to concentrate on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.I really enjoyed the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I had seen a play this summer and that is why I decided to read the book. I wanted to see how the book was compared to the play. The book was just as good as the play I had seen.I have to say that this story is fantastic and as I was reading it I could tell that it was about the two personalities people have in themselves. The good and the evil that are always fighting inside you. I found it interesting when I read the letter from Henry Jekyll about how this all came about.The afterword by Jerome Charyn was very well written and informs the reader about the author and some of the possible connections between the characters and Robert Louis Stevenson.

[andreablythe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure the original Hyde lives up to the figure of threat and evil that pop culture has made him over the years. But this novel is short and fairly suspenseful — or it would be, if I didn't already know the answer to the mystery of Mr. Hyde and why Dr. Jekyll is protecting him. The story is quick and it's a classic worth visiting.

[shaunesay · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the first time I've ever read the original Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I'll admit I had no idea it was written by the same author as Treasure Island, which I also have not read yet. I would not have put those two ideas to the same author, so it's been enlightening all around! It's also amazing to me what a short story this really was, only 94 pages, to have inspired so many adaptations and interpretations, movies, etc.

It was an interesting dark fantasy tale with an important lesson about giving in to our baser natures. The more we indulge them, the more it becomes who we are until we're no longer able to hide or control those tendencies.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A quick read of good and evil; Jekyll and Hyde. A classic use of the double.

[regoodrich · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another spectacular book by Robert Louis Stevenson. His writing enthralls me! It's so easy to find yourself held spellbound by his description of settings and characters and mood, painting such a clear picture of every aspect of the story that you can't help but shudder as if experiencing the horrors in person. One of my favorite written descriptions sets a clear image of the early-morning, fog-laden streets of London and the eeriness accompanying the pursuit of a murderer.

"It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagaration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer's eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare."

And this...perfect words to describe the awful demon that was Mr. Edward Hyde.

"Is it the mere radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent? ....O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.(Edward Hyde)"

I enjoyed this tale; a dark glimpse into the struggles of every man, resisting or succumbing to vile temptations. This was a short story, but an intense read.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This story of a doctor who splits off his dark side with a potion might have been much more impressive in its psychology of duality when published in 1886. The novella kept me reading from start to finish, without really moving me--the story is kept at one remove until it's last few chapters by being seen through the perspective of Utterson, Dr Jekyll's friend and lawyer, a rather bland figure. The last two chapters are letters from a friend and colleague of Jekyll, then finally Jekyll himself, but it feels like an abrupt end because we never get Utterson's reaction to the revelations in those letters. A novel that did actually impress was a modern retelling, Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin, telling the story from the perspective of Jekyll's maid, who is unnamed and only briefly mentioned in the original.

[rsplenda477 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great example of the theme of the duality of man, which all of us carry in our hearts. Stevenson exploits these fears in a well-structured, yet somewhat difficult, novel.

[samantha100_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Elegantly told and suspenseful, this classic story certainly stands the test of time. I read the Keynotes Classics edition. I especially appreciated the introductory key written by Michelle M. White. She provides interesting information about the author and offers valuable suggestions about what to look for in the story. As a result, I believe I got much more from this reading than I did when I first read it. Highly recommended.