Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Tim Middleton, Head of English Studies, University of Ripon and York.

‘…man is not truly one, but truly two.’

In this powerful deconstruction of Calvinist belief and the hypocrisy at the heart of Victorian society, Stevenson creates a gothic icon in the divided self that is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Born from a nightmare and anticipating Freud’s theory of the unconscious, Stevenson literalises the concepts of the supernatural doppelgänger and the split personality in a timeless tale of guilt, desire, and violence by which all subsequent ‘double’ stories must be judged. In seeking to cleanse his soul of sin, Dr Henry Jekyll instead unleashes a monster. First published in 1886, this tragic study of the duality of man established Stevenson’s international reputation as an author.

publisher: wordsworth editions

pages: 256