The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Introduction by Jeffrey D. Keeten

 


Gravelight Horror Classics is to be commended. Not only have they republished this timeless masterpiece, one of the most famous and influential works of literature ever written, but have also included a lesser known Stevenson tale, Markheim, and a splendid eight-page introductory essay by Jeffrey D. Keeten, a familiar name here on Goodreads since Jeffrey, a top reviewer, has written well over 1,200 comprehensive reviews on this site in the past dozen or so years.

I'll assume readers are familiar with this Stevenson classic, thus I'll focus on Jeffrey's essay entitled The Book that Burned by including a batch of direct quotes along with my modest comments.

“A creature born of a dream, nay spawned from the darkest nightmare. Dr. Jekyll, or more importantly, Mr. Hyde, sprang to life from such a place in the twisted bedsheets of a moaning and muttering writer.”

Jeffrey provides the vivid context of Stevenson's writing this work, a writing that took place over the course of three days when the author suffered from an illness. And what happened when he finally read his first draft to Fanny, his wife? As was her usual custom since her husband handled criticism better when he read her reflections rather than speaking to him directly, Fanny wrote out her objections to the story (you'll have to read Jeffrey's essay citing her specific criticisms). And what was Robert Louis Stevenson's reaction to Fanny's words? He burned his initial draft!

“The first manuscript may have burned, but the finished book rose like the phoenix and became an instant classic.”

Jeffrey outlines the lively response to such a tale, noting, among several other specific examples, how “Ministers pounded their pulpits with copies of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, expounding the costs of sinful hidden lives. Many Victorian men were living duel existences and squirmed when they saw their secret lives exposed so blatantly in the pages of Stevenson's novella.” In a word, those denizens of the nineteenth century were given a serious case of the willies.

Jeffrey shares a number of key biographical points, including Robert Louis Stevenson's early years, his willful desire to lead his own life rather than one proscribed by the social mores of his family, and also the author's literary output. Jeffrey then zeroes in on the psychology of Dr. Henry Jekyll and his relationship to Hyde, especially Stevenson's envisioning them respectively. "Yes, Stevenson makes the case that everyone is made up of good and evil, but he also wants everyone to recognize that our conniving, dreadful, spiteful, criminal thoughts that we consider to be our evil side are very seductive, too. To embrace them is to be free of the rigors of obligations and the constrictions of what society has deemed to be right."

I'll conclude with Jeffrey making an important point: “The greatness and, in a sense, the weakness of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for a modern audience is that they already know the story through movies, TV shows, plays, comic books, anecdotal allusions, references to other books, and so on. The power of this tale is the fact that nearly everyone on the planet knows the story, even though few have actually read the book.” Takeaway message: Read the book! And I highly recommend this Gravelight Horror Classics edition.


Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894


Jeffrey D. Keeten, author, literary critic, book collector and lover of books