Rating: 4/5
** spoiler alert ** I’ve been meaning to read Robert Louis Stevenson’s thriller
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for quite some time now. I finally got round to it yesterday and was struck by the beautiful old-fashioned writing, occasionally punctuated with snippets of dry humour, that told the original and exciting tale.
Dr Henry Jekyll has invented a potion which, when concocted just right, enables the drinker to transform into their inner self in human form: that is, the typically grotesque, evil soul which we tend to suppress under a guise of innocence and happiness in our everyday life. Dr Jekyll (who, as of yet, has told no one of his dark discovery), on taking the draught, finds himself transformed into a cruel and hideous creature who goes by the name of Edward Hyde. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
I was entranced by this unique and exciting horror story, so very different from Stevenson’s Treasure Island which I read a couple of years ago. I highly recommend this very strange and scary novella.
“And you never asked about—the place with the door?” said Mr Utterson.
“No, sir: I had a delicacy,” was the reply. “I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.”