Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde »

The Victorian poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once said, "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." The author of the magical A Child's Garden of Verses and the chilling The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson indeed planted powerful literary seeds -- that grew into undisputed classics.

First published in 1886 Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde became an immediate success and remains one of Stevenson's best-selling works. With the appeal of a psychological thriller the narrative follows a London lawyer, Gabriel John Utterson, investigating strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the misanthropic Mr Edward Hyde. Allegorical in nature, this world-famous 'fable' examines the duality of human nature; and suggests that within the same person there is both an apparently good and an evil personality.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’s impact is such that "Jekyll and Hyde" has become an accepted part of the English language, with the phrase coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character and fibre from one situation to the next. What Freud called a split personality.