Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is an 1886 Gothic horror novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and a murderous criminal named Edward Hyde.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is considered to be a defining book of the gothic literature genre. The novella has also had an impact on popular culture, with the phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" being used in vernacular to refer to people with an outwardly good but sometimes shockingly evil nature.
Inspiration and writing
Stevenson had long been intrigued by the idea of how human personalities can reflect the interplay of good and evil. While still a teenager, he developed a script for a play about William Brodie, a Scottish cabinet-maker, deacon of a trades guild, and Edinburgh city councillor, who maintained a secret life as a burglar in order to fund his mistresses and gambling addiction, which Stevenson later reworked with the help of W. E. Henley and which was produced for the first time in 1882.
Inspiration may also have come from the writer's friendship with an Edinburgh-based French teacher, Eugène Chantrelle, who was convicted and executed for the murder of his wife in May 1878. Chantrelle, who had appeared to lead a normal life in the city, poisoned his wife with opium. According to author Jeremy Hodges, Stevenson was present throughout the trial and as "the evidence unfolded he found himself, like Dr Jekyll, 'aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde'." Moreover, it was believed that the teacher had committed other murders both in France and Britain by poisoning his victims at supper parties with a "favourite dish of toasted cheese and opium".
Stevenson was friends with homosexual men, including Horatio Brown, Edmund Gosse, and John Addington Symonds,Claire Harman, Robert Louis Stevenson: a biography, HarperCollins, 2008, p210. and the duality of their socially suppressed selves may have shaped his book.Claire Harman, Robert Louis Stevenson: a biography, HarperCollins, 2008, p305. Symonds was shocked by the book, writing to Stevenson that "viewed as an allegory, it touches one too closely."Claire Harman, Robert Louis Stevenson: a biography, HarperCollins, 2008, p214.
According to Stevenson's essay "A Chapter on Dreams" (Scribner's, Jan. 1888), after racking his brains for days over a possible plot for the story, he had a dream that gave him "three scenes, and the central idea of a voluntary change becoming involuntary". Biographer Graham Balfour quoted Stevenson's wife, Fanny Stevenson: In the small hours of one morning,[...] I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis. Thinking he had a nightmare, I awakened him. He said angrily: "Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale." I had awakened him at the first transformation scene.
Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's stepson, wrote: "I don't believe that there was ever such a literary feat before as the writing of Dr Jekyll. I remember the first reading as though it were yesterday. Louis came downstairs in a fever; read nearly half the book aloud; and then, while we were still gasping, he was away again, and busy writing. I doubt if the first draft took so long as three days."
As was customary, Mrs Stevenson would read the draft and offer her criticisms in the margins. Stevenson was confined to bed at the time from a haemorrhage. In her comments in the manuscript, she observed that in effect the story was really an allegory, but Stevenson was writing it as a story. After a while, Stevenson called her back into the bedroom and pointed to a pile of ashes: he had burnt the manuscript in fear that he would try to salvage it, and thus forced himself to start again from nothing, writing an allegorical story as she had suggested. Scholars debate whether he really burnt his manuscript; there is no direct factual evidence for the burning, but it remains an integral part of the history of the novella. In another version of the story, Stevenson came downstairs to read the manuscript for his wife and stepson. Enraged by his wife's criticism, he went back to his room, only to come back later admitting she was right. He then threw the original draft into the fire, and stopped his wife and stepson from rescuing it.
The novella was written in the southern English seaside town of Bournemouth in Dorset, where Stevenson had moved in 1884, because his stepson was at school there and to benefit from its mild climate, sea air and the aroma of its many resinous pine trees. Stevenson rewrote the story in three to six days. The original dream may have been stimulated by the medication Stevenson was receiving: ergotine (to stop lung hemorrhaging), derived from ergot, which could induce hallucinations, and possibly cocaine (at the time being investigated for medical benefits), though we have no direct evidence of this.Possibly with the help of cocaine, according to William Gray's revisionist history Robert Louis Stevenson: A Literary Life (2004). . However, there is no reason to believe he was "on drugs" when he wrote the work. According to Osbourne, "The mere physical feat was tremendous, and, instead of harming him, it roused and cheered him inexpressibly". He continued to refine the work for four to six weeks after the initial revision.
Plot summary Mr Utterson, a reserved and morally upright lawyer, and his lighthearted cousin Mr Enfield are on their weekly walk when they reach the door of a mysterious, unkempt house located down a by-street in a bustling quarter of London. Enfield recounts to Utterson that months prior, he witnessed a malevolent-looking man named Edward Hyde deliberately trample a young girl after a seemingly minor collision. Enfield forced Hyde to pay her family a large sum of money to avoid a scandal. Hyde brought Enfield to this door and gave him a cheque signed by a reputable gentleman later revealed to be Dr Henry Jekyll, Utterson's friend and client. Utterson fears Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll, as Jekyll recently changed his will to make Hyde the sole beneficiary in the event of Jekyll's death or disappearance. When Utterson tries to discuss Hyde with Jekyll, Jekyll says he can get rid of Hyde when he wants and asks him to drop the matter.
A year later in October, a servant sees Hyde beat Sir Danvers Carew, another one of Utterson's clients, to death and leave behind half a broken cane. The police contact Utterson, who leads officers to Hyde's apartment. Hyde has vanished, but they find the other half of the broken cane, which Utterson recognises as one he had given to Jekyll. Utterson visits Jekyll, who produces a note allegedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologising for the trouble that he has caused. However, Hyde's handwriting is similar to Jekyll's own, leading Utterson to conclude that Jekyll forged the note to protect Hyde.
For two months, Jekyll reverts to his former sociable manner, appearing almost rejuvenated, but in early January, he abruptly begins refusing all visitors, deepening the mystery and concern surrounding his behaviour. Dr Hastie Lanyon, a mutual friend of Jekyll and Utterson, dies of shock after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter to be opened after Jekyll's death or disappearance. In late February, during another walk with Enfield, Utterson starts a conversation with Jekyll at his laboratory window. Jekyll suddenly slams the window shut and disappears, shocking and concerning Utterson.
In early March, Jekyll's butler Poole visits Utterson and says Jekyll has secluded himself in his laboratory for weeks. Utterson and Poole break into the laboratory and find Hyde's lifeless body grotesquely draped in Jekyll's clothes, with the scene suggesting a suicide. They find a letter from Jekyll to Utterson. Utterson reads Lanyon's letter, then Jekyll's.
Lanyon's letter reveals his deterioration resulted from the shock of seeing Hyde drink an elixir that turned him into Jekyll. Jekyll's letter explains he held himself to strict moral standards publicly, but indulged in unstated vices and struggled with shame. He found a way to transform himself and thereby indulge his vices without fear of detection. Jekyll's transformed body, Hyde, was evil, self-indulgent, and uncaring to anyone but himself. Initially, Jekyll controlled the transformations with the serum, but one night in August, he became Hyde involuntarily in his sleep.
Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. Despite this, one night he faltered and drank the serum. Hyde, his desires having been caged for so long, killed Carew. Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations. Then, in early January, he transformed involuntarily while awake. Far from his laboratory and hunted by the police as a murderer, Hyde, needing help to avoid capture, wrote to Lanyon in Jekyll's hand, asking him to bring chemicals from his laboratory. In Lanyon's presence, Hyde mixed the chemicals, drank the serum, and transformed into Jekyll. The shock of the sight instigated Lanyon's deterioration and death. Meanwhile, Jekyll's involuntary transformations increased in frequency and required ever larger doses of the serum to reverse. One of these transformations caused Jekyll to slam his window shut on Utterson.
Eventually, the supply of salt used in the serum ran low, and subsequent batches prepared from new stocks failed to work. Jekyll speculated that the original ingredient had some impurity that made it work. Realising that he would stay transformed as Hyde, Jekyll wrote out a full account of the events. Jekyll concludes by confessing that he is uncertain whether Hyde will face execution or muster the courage to end his own life, but it no longer matters to him: Jekyll's consciousness is fading fast, and whatever fate awaits, it is Hyde's alone to endure.
Characters Mr Utterson Gabriel John Utterson, a lawyer, has been a close loyal friend of Jekyll and Lanyon for many years. Utterson is a measured and, at all times, emotionless bachelor – who nonetheless seems believable, trustworthy, tolerant of the faults of others, and indeed genuinely likeable. However, Utterson is not immune to guilt, as he is quick to investigate and judge an interest in others' downfalls, which creates a spark of interest not only in Jekyll but also regarding Hyde. He concludes that human downfall results from indulging oneself in topics of interest. As a result of this line of reasoning, he lives life as a recluse and "dampens his taste for the finer items of life". Utterson concludes that Jekyll lives life as he wishes by enjoying his occupation.
Dr Henry Jekyll / Mr Edward Hyde
Based in Soho in London's West End, Dr Jekyll is a "large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty with something of a slyish cast", who sometimes feels he is battling between the good and evil within himself, leading to the struggle between his dual personalities of Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. He has spent a great part of his life trying to repress evil urges that were not fitting for a man of his stature. He creates a serum, or potion, in an attempt to separate this hidden evil from his personality. In doing so, Jekyll transformed into the smaller, younger, cruel, remorseless, and evil Hyde. Jekyll has many friends and an amiable personality, but as Hyde, he becomes mysterious and violent. As time goes by, Hyde grows in power. After taking the potion repeatedly, he no longer relies upon it to unleash his inner demon, i.e., his alter ego. Eventually, Hyde grows so strong that Jekyll becomes reliant on the potion to remain conscious throughout the book.
Mr Enfield