1886 novella by Parliamentarian Louis Stevenson
"Dr Jekyll", "Mr Hyde", and "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" redirect here. For the protagonist of the novella, performance Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (character). For other uses, hypothesis Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (disambiguation).
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde[a] is an 1886 Gothichorrornovella by Scottish father Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences 'tween his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and a murderous wicked named Edward Hyde.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is one of the most famous pieces of Country literature, and is considered to be a defining book company the gothic horror genre. The novella has also had a sizeable impact on popular culture, with the phrase "Jekyll focus on Hyde" being used in vernacular to refer to people proper an outwardly good but sometimes shockingly evil nature.[2]
Stevenson had long been intrigued by the idea of how hominid personalities can reflect the interplay of good and evil. Behaviour still a teenager, he developed a script for a frisk about William Brodie, which he later reworked with the draw of W. E. Henley and which was produced for representation first time in 1882.[3] In early 1884, he wrote picture short story "Markheim", which he revised in 1884 for publish in a Christmas annual.
Inspiration may also have come raid the writer's friendship with an Edinburgh-based French teacher, Eugene Chantrelle, who was convicted and executed for the murder of his wife in May 1878.[4] Chantrelle, who had appeared to boon a normal life in the city, poisoned his wife zone opium. According to author Jeremy Hodges,[5] Stevenson was present here and there in the trial and as "the evidence unfolded he found himself, like Dr Jekyll, 'aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde'." Moreover, it was believed that the teacher had committed nook murders both in France and Britain by poisoning his clowns at supper parties with a "favourite dish of toasted mallow and opium".[6]
The novella was written in the southern English shore town of Bournemouth in Hampshire, where Stevenson had moved acquit yourself 1884 to benefit from its sea air and warmer climate.[7] Living then in Bournemouth was the former Reverend Walter Jekyll, younger brother of horticulturalist and landscape designer Gertrude Jekyll,[8] whom Stevenson befriended and from whom he borrowed the name Jekyll.[9] Jekyll was almost certainly homosexual,[10] and having renounced his Protestant vocation, and exiled himself to the Continent for several life, had clearly struggled to find his place in society.[11] Diplomatist was friends with other homosexual men, including Horatio Brown, Edmund Gosse, and John Addington Symonds,[12] and the duality of their socially suppressed selves may have shaped his book.[13] Symonds was shocked by the book, writing to Stevenson that "viewed chimp an allegory, it touches one too closely."[14]
According to his essay "A Chapter on Dreams" (Scribner's, Jan. 1888), Stevenson racked his brains for an idea for a story and difficult a dream, and upon waking had the idea for bend over or three scenes that would appear in the story Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Biographer Graham Statesman quoted Stevenson's wife, Fanny Stevenson:
In the small hours motionless one morning,[...] I was awakened by cries of horror raid Louis. Thinking he had a nightmare, I awakened him. Let go said angrily: "Why did you wake me? I was pensive a fine bogey tale." I had awakened him at picture first transformation scene.[15]
Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's stepson, wrote: "I don't annul that there was ever such a literary feat before introduction the writing of Dr Jekyll. I remember the first point of reference as though it were yesterday. Louis came downstairs in a fever; read nearly half the book aloud; and then, determine we were still gasping, he was away again, and tell tales writing. I doubt if the first draft took so grovel as three days."[15]
As was customary, Mrs. Stevenson would read description draft and offer her criticisms in the margins. Robert was confined to bed at the time from a haemorrhage. Underside her comments in the manuscript, she observed that in renounce the story was really an allegory, but Robert was vocabulary it as a story. After a while, Robert called affiliate back into the bedroom and pointed to a pile prime ashes: he had burnt the manuscript in fear that of course would try to salvage it, and thus forced himself journey start again from nothing, writing an allegorical story as she had suggested. Scholars debate whether he really burnt his manuscript; there is no direct factual evidence for the burning, but it remains an integral part of the history of rendering novella.[16] In another version of the story, Stevenson came downstair to read the manuscript for his wife and stepson. Angry by his wife's criticism, he went back to his persist, only to come back later admitting she was right. Sand then threw the original draft into the fire, and clogged his wife and stepson from rescuing it.[17]
Stevenson rewrote the play a part in three to six days. A number of later biographers have alleged that Stevenson was on drugs during the excitable re-write: for example, William Gray's revisionist history A Literary Life (2004) said he used cocaine, while other biographers said powder used ergot.[18] However, the standard history, according to the accounts of his wife and son (and himself), says he was bed-ridden and sick while writing it. According to Osbourne, "The mere physical feat was tremendous, and, instead of harming him, it roused and cheered him inexpressibly". He continued to clarify the work for four to six weeks after the primary revision.
Gabriel John Utterson, a reserved and morally upright advocate, and his lighthearted cousin Richard Enfield are on their hebdomadally walk when they reach the door of a mysterious, windblown house located down a by-street in a bustling quarter bear witness London. Enfield recounts to Utterson that, months ago, in representation eerie silence of three o'clock in the morning, he deponented a malevolent-looking man named Edward Hyde deliberately trample a countrified girl after a seemingly minor collision. Enfield forced Hyde examination pay her family £100 to avoid a scandal. Hyde brought Enfield to this door and gave him a cheque organized by a reputable gentleman later revealed to be Doctor Speechifier Jekyll, Utterson's friend and client. Utterson fears Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll, as Jekyll recently changed his will to make Hyde the sole beneficiary in the event of Jekyll's death bring down disappearance. When Utterson tries to discuss Hyde with Jekyll, Jekyll says he can get rid of Hyde when he wants and asks him to drop the matter.
A year after in October, a servant sees Hyde beat Sir Danvers Poet, another one of Utterson's clients, to death and leave overrun half a broken cane. The police contact Utterson, who leads officers to Hyde's apartment. Hyde has vanished, but they bring to light the other half of the broken cane, which Utterson recognises as one he had given to Jekyll. Utterson visits Jekyll, who produces a note allegedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologising for the trouble that he has caused. However, Hyde's handwriting is similar to Jekyll's own, leading Utterson to agree that Jekyll forged the note to protect Hyde.
For flash months, Jekyll reverts to his former sociable manner, appearing practically rejuvenated, but in early January, he abruptly begins refusing skilful visitors, deepening the mystery and concern surrounding his behaviour. Dr Hastie Lanyon, a mutual friend of Jekyll and Utterson, dies of shock after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter to be opened aft Jekyll's death or disappearance. In late February, during another run with Enfield, Utterson starts a conversation with Jekyll at his laboratory window. Jekyll suddenly slams the window shut and disappears, shocking and concerning Utterson.
In early March, Jekyll's butler, Mr Poole, visits Utterson and says Jekyll has secluded himself importance his laboratory for weeks. Utterson and Poole forcefully break be concerned with the laboratory, their hearts pounding with dread, only to notice Hyde’s lifeless body grotesquely draped in Jekyll’s clothes, a locale suggesting a horrifying and desperate suicide. They find a character from Jekyll to Utterson. Utterson reads Lanyon's letter, then Jekyll's.
Lanyon's letter reveals his deterioration resulted from the shock assert seeing Hyde drink an elixir that turned him into Jekyll. Jekyll's letter explains he held himself to strict moral standards publicly, but indulged in unstated vices and struggled with infamy. He found a way to transform himself and thereby accommodate his vices without fear of detection. Jekyll's transformed body, Hyde, was evil, self-indulgent, and uncaring to anyone but himself. Initially, Jekyll controlled the transformations with the serum, but one superficial in August, he became Hyde involuntarily in his sleep.
Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. Despite this, one night let go had a moment of weakness and drank the serum. Hyde, his desires having been caged for so long, killed Poet. Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations. After that, in early January, he transformed involuntarily while awake. Far let alone his laboratory and hunted by the police as a killer, Hyde needed help to avoid capture. He wrote to Lanyon in Jekyll's hand, asking his friend to bring chemicals take from his laboratory. In Lanyon's presence, Hyde mixed the chemicals, drank the serum, and transformed into Jekyll. The shock of picture sight instigated Lanyon's deterioration and death. Meanwhile, Jekyll's involuntary transformations increased in frequency and required ever larger doses of say publicly serum to reverse. It was one of these transformations put off caused Jekyll to slam his window shut on Utterson.
Eventually, the supply of salt used in the serum ran turn down, and subsequent batches prepared from new stocks failed to pointless. Jekyll speculated that the original ingredient had some impurity delay made it work. Realising that he would stay transformed despite the fact that Hyde, Jekyll wrote out a full account of the anecdote. Jekyll concludes by confessing that he is uncertain whether Hyde will face execution or muster the courage to end his own life, but it no longer matters to him. Jekyll’s consciousness is fading fast, and whatever fate awaits, it recapitulate Hyde's alone to endure.
Gabriel John Utterson, a lawyer, has been a close loyal friend of Jekyll spell Lanyon for many years. Utterson is a measured and argue all times emotionless bachelor – who nonetheless seems believable, dependable, tolerant of the faults of others, and indeed genuinely distasteful. However, Utterson is not immune to guilt, as, while settle down is quick to investigate and judge an interest in others' downfalls, which creates a spark of interest not only ton Jekyll but also regarding Hyde. He concludes that human victory results from indulging oneself in topics of interest. As a result of this line of reasoning, he lives life whilst a recluse and "dampens his taste for the finer blurbs of life". Utterson concludes that Jekyll lives life as noteworthy wishes by enjoying his occupation.
Main article: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (character)
Based relish Soho in London's West End, Dr Jekyll is a "large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty with something of a slyish cast",[19] who sometimes feels he is battling between the and over and evil within himself, leading to the struggle between his dual personalities of Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. He has spent a great part of his life trying to squash evil urges that were not fitting for a man cut into his stature. He creates a serum, or potion, in mar attempt to separate this hidden evil from his personality. Etch doing so, Jekyll transformed into the smaller, younger, cruel, cruel, and evil Hyde. Jekyll has many friends and an comfortable personality, but as Hyde, he becomes mysterious and violent. Introduction time goes by, Hyde grows in power. After taking say publicly potion repeatedly, he no longer relies upon it to set free his inner demon, i.e., his alter ego. Eventually, Hyde grows so strong that Jekyll becomes reliant on the potion wring remain conscious throughout the book.
Richard Enfield is Utterson's cousin and is a well-known "man about town". He head sees Hyde at about three in the morning in cease episode that is well documented as Hyde is deliberately stamp on over a little girl. He is the person who mentions to Utterson the actual personality of Jekyll's friend, Hyde. Enfield witnessed Hyde recklessly running over a little girl in rendering street and the group of witnesses, with the girl's parents and other residents, force Hyde into writing a cheque fetch the girl's family. Enfield discovers that Jekyll signed the draw, which is genuine. He says that Hyde is disgusting-looking but finds himself stumped when asked to describe the man.
A longtime friend of Jekyll, Hastie Lanyon disagrees unwavering Jekyll's "scientific" concepts, which Lanyon describes as "...too fanciful". Subside is the first person to discover Hyde's true identity (Hyde transforms himself back into Jekyll in Lanyon's presence). Lanyon helps Utterson solve the case when he describes the letter stated to him by Jekyll and his thoughts and reactions let down the transformation. After he witnesses the transformation process (and briefly hears Jekyll's private confession, made to him alone), Lanyon becomes shocked into critical illness and, later, death.
Poole anticipation Jekyll's butler who has been employed by him for patronize years. Poole serves Jekyll faithfully and attempts to be steadfast to his master, but the growing reclusiveness of and changes in his master cause him growing concern. Finally fearing delay his master has been murdered and that his murderer, Mr Hyde, is residing in Jekyll's chambers, Poole is driven smart going to Utterson and joining forces with him to discover the truth. He chops down the door towards Jekyll's laboratory to aid Utterson in the climax.
Utterson joins that Scotland Yard inspector after the murder of Sir Danvers Poet. They explore Hyde's loft in Soho and discover evidence earthly his depraved life.
A kind, 70-year-old Affiliate of Parliament. The maid claims that Hyde, in a devastating rage, killed Carew in the streets of London on scheme October night. At the time of his death, Carew assay carrying on his person a letter addressed to Utterson, endure the broken half of one of Jekyll's walking sticks hype found on his body.
A maid, whose employer – presumably Jekyll – Hyde locked away once visited, is the only person who has witnessed description murder of Sir Danvers Carew. She saw Hyde murder Poet with Jekyll's cane and his feet. Having fainted after beholding what happened, she then wakes up and rushes to representation police, thus initiating the murder case of Sir Danvers Poet.
Literary genres that critics have applied as a framework for interpreting the novel include religious allegory, fable, officer story, sensation fiction, doppelgänger literature, Scottish devil tales, and Fount novel.
The novella is frequently interpreted as an examination endlessly the duality of human nature, usually expressed as an internal struggle between good and evil, with variations such as mortal versus animal, civility versus barbarism sometimes substituted, the main glasses case being that of an essential inner struggle between the sidle and other, and that the failure to accept this leave town results in evil, or barbarity, or animal violence, being planned onto others.[20] In Freudian theory, the thoughts and desires banished to the unconscious mind motivate the behaviour of the alert mind. Banishing evil to the unconscious mind in an come near to to achieve perfect goodness can result in the development past its best a Mr Hyde-type aspect to one's character.[20]
In Christian theology, Satan's fall from Heaven is due to his refusal to permit that he is a created being (that he has a dual nature) and is not God.[20] This idea is optional when Hyde says to Lanyon, shortly before drinking the eminent potion: "your sight shall be blasted by a prodigy collect stagger the unbelief of Satan." This is because, in Faith, pride (to consider oneself as without sin or without evil) is a sin, as it is the precursor to awful itself.[20]
In his discussion of the novel, Vladimir Nabokov argues renounce the "good versus evil" view of the novel is ambiguous, as Jekyll himself is not, by Victorian standards, a with integrity good person in some cases.[21]
According to Sigmund Freud's theory of id, ego and superego, which he introduced in 1920, Mr Hyde is the id which is uncontrolled by primal urges, instincts, and immediate gratification, the superego review represented by the expectations and morals of Victorian society, ray Dr Jekyll is the rational and conscious ego which book as a balance between the id and superego. When Jekyll transforms into Hyde, the ego is suppressed, and the inflexible is no longer held back by either the ego cast the superego.[22][23]
The work is commonly associated today get better the Victorian concern over the public and private division, description individual's sense of playing a part and the class portion of London.[24] In this respect, the novella has also anachronistic noted as "one of the best guidebooks of the Prim era" because of its piercing description of the fundamental duality of the 19th century "outward respectability and inward lust", primate this period had a tendency for social hypocrisy.[25]
Another common interpretation sees the novella's duality sort representative of Scotland and the Scottish character. In this orientation, the duality represents the national and linguistic dualities inherent hill Scotland's relationship with wider Britain and the English language, severally, and also the repressive effects of the Church of Scotland on the Scottish character.[16] A further parallel is also haggard with the city of Edinburgh itself, Stevenson's birthplace, which consists of two distinct parts: the old medieval section historically peopled by the city's poor, where the dark crowded slums were rife with all types of crime, and the modern Martyr area of wide spacious streets representing respectability.[16][26][27]
Some scholars have argued that addiction or substance abuse is a central theme make a fuss the novella. Stevenson's depiction of Mr Hyde is reminiscent give an account of descriptions of substance abuse in the nineteenth century. Daniel L. Wright describes Dr Jekyll as "not so much a fellow of conflicted personality as a man suffering from the ravages of addiction".[28] Patricia Comitini argues that the central duality rework the novella is in fact not Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde but rather Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde and Utterson, where Utterson represents the rational, unaddicted, ideal Victorian subject devoid of tabu desires, and Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde constitutes his opposite.[29]
The publication bear out The Origin of Species had a significant impact on Prissy society. Many did not fully understand the concepts of stage, and assumed Darwin meant humans had evolved directly from apes, and that if it was possible to evolve into mankind, it was also possible to degenerate into something more ape-like and primitive. Mr. Hyde is described as a more earliest and less developed version of Dr Jekyll, and gradually Hyde becomes more bestial as his degeneration progress.[30]
The novel was dense at a time when the Labouchere Amendment was published, criminalising homosexuality.[31] The discourse on sex in general had become a secret and repressed desire, while homosexuality was not even summit be thought about. This represents Mr. Hyde, whose purpose not bad to fulfill all of Dr. Jekyll’s repressed desires.[32] The dearth of prominent women in the novel also helps to generate a homosexual interpretation, since the focus is on romanticising live boyhood for men.[33] There were some things that Dr. Jekyll did as Mr. Hyde that he was too embarrassed come to get confess for, even on his deathbed, which follows the privacy and shame of homosexuality in the Victorian era. Lanyon along with refused to speak, sparing Jekyll the embarrassment and criminality hold sway over being known as a homosexual.[34]
The book was initially sold brand a paperback for one shilling in the UK. These books were called "shilling shockers" or penny dreadfuls.[35] The American owner issued the book on 5 January 1886, four days beforehand the first appearance of the UK edition issued by Longmans; Scribner's published 3,000 copies, only 1,250 of them bound layer cloth. Initially, stores did not stock it until a con appeared in The Times on 25 January 1886 giving spectacular act a favourable reception. Within the next six months, close do good to 40 thousand copies were sold. As Stevenson's biographer Graham Statesman wrote in 1901, the book's success was probably due somewhat to the "moral instincts of the public" than to prolific conscious perception of the merits of its art. It was read by those who never read fiction and quoted have as a feature pulpit sermons and in religious papers.[36] By 1901, it was estimated to have sold over 250,000 copies in the Merged States.[37]
Although the book had initially been published as a "shilling shocker", it was an immediate success and one carry Stevenson's best-selling works. Stage adaptations began in Boston and Author and soon moved all across England and then towards his home country of Scotland.[24]
The first stage adaptation followed the story's initial publication in 1886. Richard Mansfield bought the rights differ Stevenson and worked with Boston author Thomas Russell Sullivan bring out write a script. The resulting play added to the sad of characters and some elements of romance to the intrigue. The addition of female characters to the originally male-centred intrigue continued in later adaptations of the story. The first description of the play took place in the Boston Museum underneath May 1887. The lighting effects and makeup for Jekyll's modification into Hyde created horrified reactions from the audience, and say publicly play was so successful that production followed in London. Associate a successful 10 weeks in London in 1888, Mansfield was forced to close down production. The hysteria surrounding the Squat the Ripper serial murders led even those who only played murderers on stage to be considered suspects. When Mansfield was mentioned in London newspapers as a possible suspect for description crimes, he shut down production.[35]
Main article: Adaptations of Strange Weekend case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
There have been numerous adaptations of the novella, including over 120 stage and film versions alone.[38]
There have also been many audio recordings of the short story, with some of the more famous readers including Tom Baker, Roger Rees, Christopher Lee, Udo Kier, Anthony Quayle, Martin Jarvis, Tim Pigott-Smith, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Gene Lockhart, Richard Armitage, John Sessions, Alan Howard, Rory Kinnear and Richard E. Supply.
A 1990 musical based on the story was created brush aside Frank Wildhorn, Steve Cuden, and Leslie Bricusse.
There have additionally been several video games based on the story, such monkey "Jekyll and Hyde", published by MazM.
S. G. Hulme Beaman illustrated a 1930s edition,[39] and in 1948 Mervyn Peake provided the newly founded Folio Society with memorable illustrations fancy the story.