Book Bearings
Cover of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

  • 131 pages ยท about 2 hours
  • First published 1886
  • 373 editions
  • Free to read

Bookshop.org links may earn us a commission. It supports independent bookstores and costs you nothing.

1 About this book

Gabriel Utterson, a sober London lawyer, is troubled by the will of his old friend Henry Jekyll, a respected doctor, which leaves everything to a certain Edward Hyde. Hyde is a small, repellent man who has been seen to trample a child in the street, and yet he comes and goes freely by the back door of the doctor's house. Fearing that Jekyll is being blackmailed, Utterson sets out to learn what binds the two men together. Robert Louis Stevenson's short novel, first published in 1886, is told as a mystery, through Utterson's inquiries and then through the written statements of those involved.

  • Horror
  • Science Fiction & Fantasy
  • Mystery
  • Classics
  • Medicine
  • Comics & graphic novels, horror
  • Murderers
  • Physicians

2 What to expect

A short Victorian horror story told as a mystery: a London lawyer tries to learn what hold the brutal Edward Hyde has over his respectable friend Henry Jekyll. Its subject is the divided self, respectability against hidden appetite, and the answer is so famous that most people know it before they start. The interest lies in the foggy London atmosphere and in how the truth comes out, through letters and confessions. It can be read in an evening.

Good for readers who want: a short gothic classic, Victorian London, and a story about the divided self.

3 Read it free, right here

A free scan from the Internet Archive opens right here on the page, with no sign-up.

Read it on the Internet Archive

4 About Robert Louis Stevenson

1850โ€“1894

Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 โ€“ 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for the novels Treasure Island (1883), Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and Kidnapped (1886) and for the poetry collection A Child's Garden of Verses (1885).

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

5 More by Robert Louis Stevenson

6 Similar books

Find a book that fits your moment