This classic horror story comes packaged with abridged and unabridged texts as well as teacher’s notes on CD-ROM. Read by the fantastic John Sessions, this atmospheric and thrilling story is brilliantly played out for the listener.
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Synopsis
One of the Guardian's novels everyone must read.
This new edition of Stevenson's renowned gothic masterpiece has a specially written introduction by Denise Mina.
In The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London lawyer Gabriel John Utterson investigates a series of sinister events involving his seemingly respectable friend Dr Henry Jekyll and the dangerous and violent criminal known as Edward Hyde. The shocking revelation about their hidden connection has enthralled generations of readers since the book's first publication in 1886; it is still regarded as one of the most important and influential stories ever written.
A morality tale of good and evil, the book explores the multi-faceted complexities of human nature, duality and class - themes that continue to fascinate and intrigue us today.
'An important book . . . written with great economy, tension and wit' - IAN RANKIN
'An exciting and unexpected read, even for those who think they know the story already' - LOUISE WELSH
'This new unabridged edition of Stevenson's spooky tale blows off the cobwebs of previous editions of the book ... a must-read'
South China Morning Post
Author
About Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. The son of a prosperous civil engineer, he was expected to follow the family profession, but was allowed to study law at Edinburgh University. Stevenson reacted strongly against the Presbyterian respectability of the city’s professional classes and this led to painful clashes with his parents. In his early twenties he became afflicted with a severe respiratory illness from which he was to suffer for the rest of his life; it was at this time that he determined to become a professional writer. The effects of the often harsh Scottish climate on his poor health forced him to spend long periods abroad. After a great deal of travelling he eventually settled in Samoa, where he died on 3 December 1894.
Stevenson’s Calvinistic upbringing gave him a preoccupation with pre-destination and a fascination with the presence of evil. In Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde he explores the darker side of the human psyche, and the character of the Master in The Master of Ballantrae (1889) was intended to be ‘all I know of the Devil’. Stevenson is well known for his novels of historical adventure, including Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886) and Catriona (1893). As Walter Allen comments in The English Novel, ‘His rediscovery of the art of narrative, of conscious and cunning calculation in telling a story so that the maximum effect of clarity and suspense is achieved, meant the birth of the novel of action as we know it.’ But these works also reveal his knowledge and feeling for the Scottish cultural past. During the last years of his life Stevenson’s creative range developed considerably, and The Beach of Falesá brought to fiction the kind of scene now associated with Conrad and Maugham. At the time of his death Robert Louis Stevenson was working on his unfinished masterpiece, Weir of Hermiston. He also wrote works of non-fiction, notably his descriptive and historical books on the South Seas area, A Footnote to History (1892) and In the South Seas (1896), as well as his celebrated defence of Father Damien, the Belgian priest who devoted his life to caring for lepers, in Father Damien; an open letter to the Reverend Hyde of Honolulu (1890).
