Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

STEVENSON, R.[obert] L.[oius]

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 

London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1886

Small 8vo., rebound in period dark green cloth, lettered in gilt with title and author to upper cover; pp. [ix], 2-141, [i], ii, ads]; with publisher’s device to title; a very nice copy, binding slightly scuffed at the backstrip and the first couple of pages a little loose, but holding; previous ownership name written in a flourishing hand to the front paste-down; end papers lightly offset; damp stain to corner of [i]-16, not affecting text; a little corner chipping to the same quire; embossed ‘W. H. Smith’ stamp to the last few pages; generally a clean and bright copy. 

First UK edition of this well-known horror novella, complete with the one page of advertisements at rear as issued. 

Stevenson was still a teenager when he became obsessed with the concept of multiple personalities. His first foray into this genre was a play based on the character of William Brodie, a Scottish cabinet maker and councillor who maintained a secret life as a burglar in order to fund his gambling addiction and to support his mistress. Further inspiration likely came from Stevenson’s friend Eugène Chantrelle, a seemingly respectable French teacher who murdered his wife and former pupil in 1878. The eventual plot came to him in the form of a nightmare, which his wife later recalled thus: “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." That ‘bogey tale’ later became Jekyll and Hyde. 

Now an enduring classic of gothic fiction, Stevenson’s story follows the life of the mild-mannered Dr Jekyll who, under the influence of a powerful drug, gradually loses his grip on his psyche with the appearance of Hyde, a twisted, malignant persona who eventually consumes his very being. Part fantasy, part psychological horror, it was initially released to great sensation, and remains today one of the most popular works of late Victorian literature, which suggests to the reader the poignant question: to what extent are we as human beings capable of true atrocity? Perhaps the answer was best manifested just a few years later, when in 1888 Jack the Ripper wreaked havoc across London. Along with Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, Stevenson undoubtedly influenced a new wave of horror writing, with Wilde’s ‘Dorian Gray’ appearing just two years later, and James’ ‘Turn of the Screw’ in 1898. 

“All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil”