Review: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the nice things my Audible subscription is doing is giving me the opportunity to catch up on a lot of the classics I never actually read. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one such book.

I’d been intending to read since finding out I was going to Edinburgh for my birthday last summer, it being written by one of Edinburgh’s literary sons, Robert Louis Stevenson, but somehow I never got around to it. Arthur Conan Doyle is on that list, as is Ian Ranking and J.K. Rowling and I’ve hit them, so I think I’m doing okay.

Anyway, this ain’t a bad story. Not nearly as gruesome as many of the adaptations tend to make it but then, in it’s own way, a bit more brutal, especially for the time. The plot, by this point, is so well known as to make recounting it a bit redundant, but I did enjoy Stevenson’s monologues on the nature of evil and man’s dual nature. I can only assume this wasn’t as commonplace a notion as it is today (partly, I’m sure, due to this book itself). It’s not a long work, Stevenson gets to his point rather quickly, so the tendency modern authors and adapters have to invent other characters (hello Mary Reilly) is understandable if not always necessary.

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