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Good and Evil Competing for a Human Soul.

Customer Rating:

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) was a remarkable author from the Victorian Era. He has left us at least two masterpieces: "The Treasure Island" (1883) and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886) and some other good novels such as "The Black Arrow" (1888). It is amazing how writers and poets are able, thru intuition, to anticipate events or discoveries. When this book as first published, Sigmund Freud was studying with Charcot and not so many years later will produce his theoretic corpus of the human psyche. At some points the present story touches Freud's conceptualizations. Dr. Jekyll suspect evil burdens every human soul, being an obstacle in its way to goodness. So he investigates and produces a drug that "liberates" the evil spirit and doing so he intend to be relived of it. But Evil starts to grow each time more powerful and emerging Mr. Hyde end cornering Dr. Jekyll into impotence and fear. This story has captivated the public's imagination for more than a hundred years. Movies, comics and theater pieces had evolved from it. His tortured dual character is now a well known icon as Stoker's Dracula or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Even if you know more or less the story and its ending, reading this very short book is a powerful adventure. A Classic you shouldn't let passes by unheeded! Reviewed by Max Yofre.

Is Hyde really a reflection of the original nature of man??

Customer Rating:

I picked up this book, because I was familiar with the plot of the book and thought it might be interesting; however, it was my familiarity with the story that made me not enjoy the book as much as I could have enjoyed it. It is a bit difficult to fully enjoy a story when you know the ending and the main points of the plot. The story centers around the events that unfold after a respected doctor develops a potion that allows him to isolate his "dark side" or evil nature into a seperate being. Dr. Jekyll struggles with the new being, Edward Hyde and eventually both beings meet their dead as Dr. Jekyll fails to win his battle against Hyde. It is a suspenseful story, and what makes it even more enjoyable is how brief it is. I finished this book during a 2 and a 1/2 hour flight. Given the suspense of the book and the brief nature of it, I definitley reccomend that everyone read this book. I do think that it is better if the reader is not familiar with the story, as this would probably allow them to enjoy the book even more. A word about this particular edition of the book. It comes with the novel at the front, and a short foreword at the end of the story. It is definitley more than enough to provide the reader with a background for the book.

Struggle between good and evil

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This is one of the original stories about the inner battle of good versus evil in which evil prevails. It is concise and somewhat lacking in adventure, but not awful for being written in 1885 after Stevenson woke from a dream to script it. It is considered on of the mainstays in classical literature and has spawned several variations to its theme and has cemented itself as a traditional Halloween character in the company of Dracula and Frankenstein.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Customer Rating:

I wasnt a big fan of this book. it didnt keep my attention very well. the entire book i was i little dazed. This book was a short novel about a man who was basically two men. First it starts out you hearing about a stange man who nobody had a good fealing about. People had heard bad things about this man and some had eye wittnessing experiences with this man his name was Mr Hyde. Mr Hyde was always seen going into Dr. Jekylls house and no one new why one day Detective Utterson decided to investigate for he was a very good friend of Dr Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll was a very rich man he lived in a very big house with cooks and servents. One day Detective Utterson decided to go and question Dr. Jekell. The real reason he went to talk to Dr. Jekyll was abou this will it gave everything he owned to Mr. Hyde. Detective Utterson wanted to know why he was a good friend of Dr. Jekylls and had never met only heard o this Mr. Hyde. When Detective Utterson spoke to Dr. Jekyll he assured him everything was alright and that he wanted Mr. Hyde to get everything. when Detective Utterson pushed more to know what was going on and why he was doing this Dr. Jekyll became angry and didnt want to talk about it any more and invited Detective Utterson to leave his house. Detective utterson did to later find out that late that night Mr. Hyde killed a man. As soon as he found out what had happened he went to talk to Dr. Jekell. Dr. Jekyll sad Detective Utterson and assured him that he had no more contact with Mr. Hyde. Detective Utterson accepted that and he left. Later Detective Utterson said that he saw a diffrence in Dr. Jekyll he was a happier better person. a few months later he had announced that he was going to die and that he didnt want any visitors to see him in such a state of life. Detective Utterson decided that that was not an excuse so Detective Utterson went over to see Dr. Jekyll. When he got there he was denied and nobody would let him see Dr. Jekyll. When he was just about to leave Dr. Jekyll pulled him aside and he said that is not my Master Dr. Jekyll that man is who i belive to be Mr. Hyde. Detective Utterson did some investigating and found the man to indeed be Mr. Hyde now there only problem was that they needed to catch him. they did and to there horror they discovered it to be DR. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for indeed they were the same man. As the real Dr. Jekyll was explaining this he said he had made a concouction that made men turn into a new man. Dr Jekyll went on to explain how it happened. again i say that i did not enjoy this book and personally do not know how it came to be a classic.

Archetype for the 20th century

Customer Rating:

After reading Jekyll and Hyde for the first time, Stevenson's wife was so horrified that the author burned his only manuscript. Fortunately for us, he re-wrote it---in three days. No one today will react to J&H the way RLS's wife did. We're too desensitized to horror and violence. And consider: whereas many people envision Hyde as some ten-foot brute, he is instead described in the book as a hairy little dwarf who roughs up little girls. But what J&H did for literature, and the reason why it is still important to read, is that it explored the dichotomy of human nature, which is partly what makes us such flawed beings. It also single-handedly gave birth to a pantheon of 20th century creatures, from the wolfman to the Incredible Hulk. This is a quick read---perhaps too quick. It is written with great economy and the right amount of description of Victorian London's seedy side. The chilling ending asks the reader to sympathize with Dr. Jekyll, whose evil twin is gradually taking more and more control of his faculties.