Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

By Samantha Lee

'Brilliant young Doctor and Scientist Henry Jekyll has a plan. His aim is to separate good from evil for the benefit of mankind. He develops a mixture to physically divide the two, using himself as a guinea pig. And the experiment succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. Except for one thing. In the process he creates a monster. Edward Hyde. The worst of himself. Pure evil made flesh. And since Jekyll is made up of both elements he is no match for the wily Hyde who glories in every kind of wicked excess. Pretty soon Hyde has the upper hand and Jekyll finds he has a tiger by the tail.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Samantha Lee
• Release date: Jan 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301672127

Samantha Lee

Samantha Lee began writing while she was still a professional performer. Her output is as diverse as it is prolific, covering both fact and fiction and including novels in the sci-fi and dark fantasy genres, self-development and exercise books, short stories and articles, TV series and movie screenplays, literary criticism and poetry. She writes her romance strand under the pseudonym Petra Webb. Her work has been translated into French, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, German, Croatian, Greek and Chinese. Of her eighteen books to date five feature in Scholastic's best-selling imprint 'Point Horror'. A regular columnist for 'Work-out Magazine' for five years and 'The Marbella Times' and 'Viva Espana' for three, she has had over two hundred articles published worldwide. Seventy-eight of her quirky short stories have featured on radio and TV as well as in various best-selling anthologies and popular magazines. Her black comedy screenplay 'The Gingerbread House' has been sold twice, first to 'Niagara Films' then to 'Random Harvest Productions'. She has also written for Thames TV's children's series 'Rainbow'. Sam has taught creative writing workshops in libraries and at literary Festivals all over Britain and acted as Master of Ceremonies at Fantasycon 11. In the Year of Literature she was writer in residence during the 'Welcome to my Nightmare' weekend in Swansea. In 2008 her team 'The Frankensteins' won both the jury and audience awards in the '24 hour challenge' at the Marbella International Film Festival for their five minute short 'Death Dancers'. Sam wrote the screenplay and played the villain, Mamma Sam, a loan-shark with an eyepatch and a bad attitude. She was a jury member at Malaga University's 'Fancine' Fantasy Film Festival the year it was chaired by actor Antonio Banderas.

Book preview

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Reviews for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

[starla_aurora · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

interesting... not what I remember from 15 yrs ago. that's what happens with memory and Hollywood influence.

[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.

[stahl2ricco · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

“... that man is not truly one, but truly two.”The idea that we all have a dark side? Well, certainly the main character of this story does! Dr. Henry Jekyll meets/creates/releases Edward Hyde, “The evil side of my nature,...”, and is not the same for it! It's a quick read, well except for the last chapter that draaaaags on, and an important story in the history of "horror" literature, so I'm glad I read it! Not scary by today's standards, but still a freaky idea and one that has been repeated often! I wonder which of my two halves would be the dominant one? Or do I have more than two? Hmm...

[bettesbooks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was expecting more. Why? Because everyone knows the tale, I just assumed the writing would be better.

[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.

[angelajmaher · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those classic stories it would be almost impossible to not be aware of on some level. The basic concept of the book is deeply ingrained in pop culture, but a lot of people probably haven't read the origin of what has become a legend of sorts.Reading the classics isn't always easy; the writing style being of a previous era. But it gives a new and interesting perspective to read the original texts that have spawned so many echoes through to the modern day.This book is a good place to start if you're wanting to start dipping into the classics. The older style might take some getting used to, but it's short. It would be easy enough to read the whole thing in a single quiet afternoon, but if read in smaller doses, still wouldn't take a terribly long time to get through.As with other classic works I've read, such as Frankenstein, the nuances and details were not quite what I expected. It has a much deeper reflection on human nature, for one.This is well worth reading, if only to see how the tale was originally portrayed.

[margaretfield · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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

[borrows0n0wants · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I love the story. However, since nearly 98% of the population is familiar with this story, it is kind of a drag to read this since you know how everything unfolds. I also didn't find the way in which the story was told very captivating. It is such a thin book, and I had a terrible time getting through it. I actually skipped parts in this book because they were so dreadfully boring.

[geoffhabiger · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I honestly don't remember if I ever read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when I was younger. Of course, I knew the tale (in passing), though what I "knew" was always tinted through the lens of pop culture references to the character. Stevenson's tale, and his description of Mr. Hyde, is very different from many of the more "monstrous" characterizations of the character, and honestly I think that these retellings do an injustice to Stevenson's work. Hyde is a monster for sure, an purely evil man, but having him be a shriveled, gnarled man who can illicit fear and revulsion by his mere presence, but who can speak as a gentleman is a much more compelling take than as a rampaging hulk. (I'm glaring at you, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.) I picked up this copy through my library to listen on my daily commute. The story was very good, and is befitting its place as a classic of story-telling. Robert Louis Stevenson does a great job of setting the scenes and letting the reader explore the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego. The method that Stevenson uses is one that probably wouldn't work in today's market - with most of the story told through the exposition of letters and confessions that are read, as opposed to the readers experiencing the shock of "seeing" the strange transformation from Utterson's perspective. My enjoyment of this particular telling of the story was a bit diminished by the pronunciation of the title's namesake - Dr. Henry Jekyll. I am an American, and I have always heard the name pronounced as "Jeh-kill". The narrator, the amazingly talented Sir Ian Holm, pronounced it as "Jee-kil" - a long "E" sound, rather than the soft "E" I am familiar with. Everything else about Holm's reading was wonderful, and I really enjoyed it, but every time he said Dr. Jekyll's name I would go "who? oh, he means the main character". Overall I liked the book and I am glad that I have read it. If you have never read the original story, and like me are only aware of the tale through second and third-hand pop culture references, then I highly recommend you pick it up.

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

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

[ghr4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It would have been a treat to read Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror tale Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde without the foreknowledge of the now familiar story or having seeen its multiple film adaptations. A well deserved sensation when first published, it remains a sturdy tale of terror, psychological conflict, and the frightening duality of human nature. Stevenson artfully lays out clues for the reader to guess the identity of Mr. Hyde, and the final chapter, recasting the events from Dr. Jekyll's viewpoint, provides a chilling conclusion.

[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.

[rajivc_18 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had read this book many years back, and read it again. It is indeed one of the more fascinating books that I have read. It's been a while since I read some of the old classics ( I started with Bertie Wooster!), and it took one or two pages before I got back into the swing of it allThe concept is incredible, and does indeed hark to the present when we are trying all sorts of brain and other experiments. It does teach us the dangers of meddling too much with biology, and playing God. Beautiful book, Needs to be widely read again

[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.

[hopeevey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like most folks, I knew the broad outline of this story, but hadn't actually read it. I'm very glad I did. It's both simpler, and more complex, than a tale of one man split between his higher and his baser selves.

The telling is a combination of memior, and epistilary. Dr. Jeckyll's solicitor tells the story, including reading out some documents, including Dr. Jeckyll's final confession. Through the narrative, we meet a group of wholely believeable characters, through a beautifully structured tale. The writing is lovely and engaging. And the more I think about the plot, the more impressed I become. Generally, I can find a hole or two, but I don't mind in a well-told tale, or a story about really good characters. In this case, I can't find any. Nothing happens purely out of narrative imperative. Even at the end, it makes perfect sense that Edward Hyde not only wants, but needs to return to being Dr. Jeckyll, for all that he hates him.

This is a wonderful example of Sciene Fiction, and hard s/f at that. It is a chemical compound that allows him to seperate himself into two identities. The author very neatly keeps the experiment from being duplicated - the effect was caused by an unkown impurity in an indgredient. Dr. Jeckyll himself tries desperately to recreate the compound, but cannot. I simple makes sense that no one else is able to, either.

The story says volumes about the morals and philosopy of morals of the time. Dr. Jeckyll is trying to divorce himself from what he considers his baser urges. Those urges become a seperate identity, which takes on an outer shape reflecting his inner nature. It's taken for granted that morality or lack thereof would be obvious on someone's face.

Dr. Jeckyll may have been, originally, trying to put aside his baser urges. His chemical compound, however, gave him a way to indulge those urges, without consequence to himself. If Edward Hyde indulged in reprehensible acts, no one would think it had anything to do with Dr. Jeckyll. Even those who knew there was a connection, assumed that Hyde was blackmailing Jeckyll.

I find myself comparing this to the Orginal Series Star Trek Episode, "The Enemy Within". (Yes, everything in the world is connected to Star Trek. Hush.) In this episode, a transporter accident splits Captain Kirk into two men. They're physically identical, but one has all of Kirk's higher, gentler aspects, and the other has all of his baser, more violent aspects. The acting (Yes, there was so acting. Didn't I tell you to hush?) was the only difference between the two Kirks. And, unlike the good Dr. Jeckyll, Kirk found his salvation not in repression, but in integration. To be his best self, he needed both his angel and his devil.

Dr. Jeckyll, however, found that give way to his darker side gave that side power. To him and his contemporaries, Kirk's solution was unthinkable. The baser part of man was a thing to be fought, suppressed, ideally to be killed entirely. Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde is a dramatic lesson in the dangers of giving way to your baser urges. At the end, it was just thinking like Hyde that brought on the transformation; that part of him had become that strong.

I don't, personally, subscribe to that philosophy. But you don't have to agree with the underlying philosophy to be moved by the tale. Dr. Jeckyll let something dangerous into his life. Once he realized just how dangerous, he stopped using the compound, and put Hyde out of his mind entirely. But he gave into temptation. You could imagine him thinking, "It'll be okay just this one time." Who hasn't thought that? But that one more time was his undoing.

[heycaye · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book would have shocked me more if only I didn't know what the real mystery was. But Stevenson's novella (I actually think it's more like a short story) is such a masterpiece that it's inevitably being referred to a lot of times. In my case I first heard of it through Van Helsing, and I was really fascinated by the thought of having dual identities. I even went so far as to name my two sim cards (my phone's dual-sim) after Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. #deadserious

So now, at least I know what the story behind the two famous characters really is. It sounded more like a mandatory thing to me, reading this book. (Though I hoped it wasn't! If only I read this before getting wind of the cultural references) :)

[librarylou · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Classic gothic horror story.

[robert.zimmermann · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't sure what to really expect with this one. Yes, it's a classic that "everyone knows about," but I didn't really know what it was about going into reading it. I knew there was a Doctor who turns himself into Mr. Hyde (pure evil). I didn't really know the specifics or anything about other characters or story line in general.

I have a somewhat ignorance with a good amount of classic books. I know them, I know enough to want to read them, but I don't peruse them further until I read them. This helps give me a fresh reaction to the story.

So my reaction to this story was great overall. Like many classics I actually listened to the audiobook version (librivox.org is GREAT for this and my budget) because it helps me read them at a good pace and makes it easier for me to pay attention. I just can't read some of the writing sometimes no matter how beautiful. Ok, back to the review, haha. It was a great story with a mystery and a great moral dilemma about good and evil. I won't really get into much more though. I know it's short and I'm not saying really anything at all. But I really like Stevenson's writing and the horror added into the mystery of what's going on. I've read Treasure Island only from him, so this is number 2 I've read. I'll have to now go and read more of him since I'm enjoying it.

[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.

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

I fantom I would have liked this book a lot more if I didn't already know from the start who was Hyde. Nevertheless, it was actually very interesting once the "action" picked up. Although I found Utterson somewhat boring at times, the ending of the book made it worth it to see it through. The most interesting part was definitely the explanation of Dr Jekyll himself at the end, which I read eagerly. Overall, it was a nice book.

[booklove2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was time to read this classic as it seems to be culturally everywhere at the moment. I'm in no way a writer, but I would have formatted this book to tell this story entirely differently. It might be presumptuous of me, but I like how it exists in my head better. (Alternating points of view from both Jekyll and Hyde with vastly different writing styles... halfway through the book you find it is the same person. Hyde slowly taking over by the end.) Maybe that is the fault of books being culturally everywhere all of the time: vaguely making assumptions about how it is written if you know the story. I didn't like the perspective from outside people ie: the lawyer. It's the only complaint I would have of a book like Bronte's Wuthering Heights: the housekeeper is telling the story and no matter how much she might have known Catherine or Heathcliff, no one can REALLY know everything from one person's perspective. Imagine the book being from Catherine and Heathcliff's POVs! Oh the drama! I thoroughly enjoyed the section on Stevenson's crazy dreams in my Broadview edition. And I thought I had crazy dreams! If he had dreams like that this book really should be better...sorry, Stevenson.

[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.

[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.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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

[gonzalo8046 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nice short read. Even though you know the ending ten pages in, I still enjoyed it.

[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.

[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.

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

Very interesting. I thought I had read this before but perhaps the memory is from the various takes on this in film or other stories. A very short novel, which I could have finished in a day if I had not been looking at booking holidays instead. It is ultimately about the duality of personality and I think about evil that lurks in us all. Dr Jekyll stumbled on a way of separating his identities from his normal benevelent self from his undernourished evil self in the evil form of Mr Hyde. The mystery of the events from his lawyer friend's point of view drew me in quite quickly. The confession at the end by Dr Jekyll was intriguing in the way he explained what was happening, and it seems like the good doctor was not entirely separate from that evil self throughout his life. So ultimately a struggle of good against evil and the perils of what happens if you indulge that evil.

[andrewcambs · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This might be deemed as somewhat of a classic amongst some people, but i found it dull. Despite being surprised by just how short it was, it took me as much effort as a 300+ page book to get through. Hard going, slow, and not particularly enthralling i'm afraid.I read the Penguin English Library edition, and was reading the story, when all of a sudden all the characters changed along with the plot.. only to realise that i was now reading the short story 'The Bottle Imp' that was added to the back of the book - i hadn't even realised i'd finished Dr Jekyll & Mr Hide. That's just how enthralling it was.

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

I love the story. However, since nearly 98% of the population is familiar with this story, it is kind of a drag to read this since you know how everything unfolds. I also didn't find the way in which the story was told very captivating. It is such a thin book, and I had a terrible time getting through it. I actually skipped parts in this book because they were so dreadfully boring.