I’ve had the book for a while but finally got around to reading it, while waiting for Notes from Underground(Dostoevsky) to arrive. When I first got the book through Amazon I was surprised how short it was, I was only aware of the common expression of Jekyll/Hyde and I watched the characters in the movie the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen where they’re pretty much just the Hulk, a character the book probably inspired. The short length is definitely a good choice because the main point or the most important message is delivered in the last chapter(Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case), and everything before it is just to set that up. I feel the author Robert Louis Stevenson really poured his experiences in that last chapter, and it was heavy stuff that culminates in a terrific way to end a book down to the last sentence. It’s a classic for a reason and highly recommended.
An interesting piece of trivia is that the book that we have is Stevenson’s second attempt at the novel. After he wrote the first version, based on a dream, his wife burnt it after judging it to be “utter nonsense.” He then had to rewrite it from scratch.
I had always heard that he burned it himself in a fit of temper after he realized his wife’s criticism of some aspect of it was valid.
That was what I thought, too. But there’s a letter written by his wife where she says that she is going to burn it, so that seems to be the accepted version. Either way, it’s a great story.
Have 2 copies and don’t regret it lol. It’s Very good read and definitely is a classic for a reason! I didn’t realize his wife burned the first copy .Crazy how she thought it was mostly utter nonsense lol.