-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
The best edition of Stevenson's supernatural fiction so far. The texts are very well edited, the notes are significant and unobtrusive for the average reader, and the appendices provide the perfect complementation for Stevenson's narratives of the uncanny. Roger Luckhurst's introduction is fascinating. A must. (Dr. Antonio Ballesteros-González, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha )
Product Description
'Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged...I was suddenly struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror.' Stevenson's short novel, published in 1886, became an instant classic. It was a Gothic horror that originated in a feverish nightmare, whose hallucinatory setting in the murky back streets of London gripped a nation mesmerized by crime and violence. The respectable doctor's mysterious relationship with his disreputable associate is finally revealed in one of the most original and thrilling endings in English literature. In addition to Jekyll and Hyde, this edition also includes a number of short stories and essays written by Stevenson in the 1880s, minor masterpieces of fiction and comment: 'The Body Snatcher', 'Markheim', and 'Olalla' feature grave-robbing, a sinister double, and degeneracy, while 'A Chapter on Dreams' and 'A Gossip on Romance' discuss artistic creation and the 'romance' form. Appendixes provide extracts from contemporary writings on personality disorder, which set Stevenson's tale in its full historical context.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
MR UTTERSON the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
MR UTTERSON the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I recently watched bits and pieces of a program on TV entitled "Great Scots," which quite obviously took a look at the famous Scots throughout history and modern times and how they contributed to society. I realized that I hadn't read all that many Scottish authors, and considering I'll now be living in Scotland for the rest of my life, I settled down to reading some good Scottish literature.
I've read Treasure Island, but that was back when I was 13, so it'd been quite some time. Most people know the premise of the story. Robert Louis Stevenson evidently came up with the idea for this story in an opium-induced haze. A London lawyer notices that his friend Henry Jekyll has been acting very odd lately and decides to investigate him and the bizarre Edward Hyde. He eventually realizes that they are the one and the same due to a potion that Jekyll drinks and splits himself into a fundamentally "good" person and a fundamentally "bad" person. It is an extended allegory on the dual nature of man, and it is a theme that has been revisited over and over again in literature. The saying of someone being a bit of a "Jekyll and Hyde" is still regularly used today.
The writing flowed well and my attention was kept throughout the novella. It was a good, short, read. Is it my favourite classic novel of all time? No, but all the same I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. This edition had clear print and I liked the cover (for some reason this book has a lot of awful covers).
I've read Treasure Island, but that was back when I was 13, so it'd been quite some time. Most people know the premise of the story. Robert Louis Stevenson evidently came up with the idea for this story in an opium-induced haze. A London lawyer notices that his friend Henry Jekyll has been acting very odd lately and decides to investigate him and the bizarre Edward Hyde. He eventually realizes that they are the one and the same due to a potion that Jekyll drinks and splits himself into a fundamentally "good" person and a fundamentally "bad" person. It is an extended allegory on the dual nature of man, and it is a theme that has been revisited over and over again in literature. The saying of someone being a bit of a "Jekyll and Hyde" is still regularly used today.
The writing flowed well and my attention was kept throughout the novella. It was a good, short, read. Is it my favourite classic novel of all time? No, but all the same I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. This edition had clear print and I liked the cover (for some reason this book has a lot of awful covers).
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'You must suffer me to go my own dark way. I have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I can't name.' (Dr Jekyll)
Stevenson's remarkable novel explores the 'other' face of Victorian respectability, the underbelly of a society 'profoundly committed to the duplicity of life.'
The setting of novel lends itself to horror. We are in London, a filthy degraded place, full of labyrinthine streets. We are blinded by fog, searching for a 'creature' who evades detection at every turn. We wander the streets with 'gentlemen' who have a pronounced predilection for night walks and alley ways and speak in 'masculine' codes. Their nightly Insomnia suggests sexual restlessness and with no women in sight, and lots of male friendships, this fin-de-siecle text rather suggests the unlawfulness of homosexual desire.
Then we abruptly encounter the inhuman figure of 'Mr Hyde' as he stamps maliciously on a helpless child. This transgression of any residue of civilised behaviour catapults the novel into horror where it lingers for the rest of the narrative. We spend time gazing at a 'blistered and distained door' through which the unspeakable Hyde makes his way and we metaphorically lose our respectable ways!
Ironically for a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson, 'Tusitala', 'a teller of tales' the tale refuses to be told. This is because the narrative is initially dependent upon the voice of the unprepossessing Utterson, ironically a man who fails to utter anything in terms of personal disclosure or revelation. This secrecy is then reinforced by other restrictive narrative viewpoints, thus confining the 'secret' of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to conjecture - the strait jacket of Victorian repression. (And yes, there is a joke in there!)
For who is the final teller of this macabre tale? The last voice we hear in the novel is that of Dr Jekyll, yet we know he died as the infamous Mr Hyde, and that we are only privy to this knowledge through the 'eyes' of Utterson who never comments about it .He just disappears into respectable silence. Each time I read the novel I am always aware of the missing voice in the text and feel rather bewildered at the lack of any stable conclusion to the novel. We are just left with the voice of the very much resurrected and undead Jekyll/Hyde voice who finishes his own novel after all!
Read it at night and lock your door!
Stevenson's remarkable novel explores the 'other' face of Victorian respectability, the underbelly of a society 'profoundly committed to the duplicity of life.'
The setting of novel lends itself to horror. We are in London, a filthy degraded place, full of labyrinthine streets. We are blinded by fog, searching for a 'creature' who evades detection at every turn. We wander the streets with 'gentlemen' who have a pronounced predilection for night walks and alley ways and speak in 'masculine' codes. Their nightly Insomnia suggests sexual restlessness and with no women in sight, and lots of male friendships, this fin-de-siecle text rather suggests the unlawfulness of homosexual desire.
Then we abruptly encounter the inhuman figure of 'Mr Hyde' as he stamps maliciously on a helpless child. This transgression of any residue of civilised behaviour catapults the novel into horror where it lingers for the rest of the narrative. We spend time gazing at a 'blistered and distained door' through which the unspeakable Hyde makes his way and we metaphorically lose our respectable ways!
Ironically for a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson, 'Tusitala', 'a teller of tales' the tale refuses to be told. This is because the narrative is initially dependent upon the voice of the unprepossessing Utterson, ironically a man who fails to utter anything in terms of personal disclosure or revelation. This secrecy is then reinforced by other restrictive narrative viewpoints, thus confining the 'secret' of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to conjecture - the strait jacket of Victorian repression. (And yes, there is a joke in there!)
For who is the final teller of this macabre tale? The last voice we hear in the novel is that of Dr Jekyll, yet we know he died as the infamous Mr Hyde, and that we are only privy to this knowledge through the 'eyes' of Utterson who never comments about it .He just disappears into respectable silence. Each time I read the novel I am always aware of the missing voice in the text and feel rather bewildered at the lack of any stable conclusion to the novel. We are just left with the voice of the very much resurrected and undead Jekyll/Hyde voice who finishes his own novel after all!
Read it at night and lock your door!
Format:Paperback
It's a tale everyone 'knows' but few seem to have had the time to actually read. This edition is perfect for students, as it has a very readable and informative introduction, along with the addition of a few of Stevenson's other short stories. The quality of the book packs no punches, but that's fine, as it's meant to be something light you can carry around with your mountain of other literature. As far as the story goes; it seems simple yet thought provoking, not nearly as clear cut as one might imagine, shrouding a small host of hinted themes relavant to its time. A modern reader cannot help but be chilled at the surreal London setting, the blunt storytelling, and possibly one of the best descriptions of evil I have ever come across.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
This book is a great insight or informant of the society that it was written in. The twist and turns of the story keep the reader's attention, but the attention to detail and links... Read more
Published on 19 July 2009 by Moonbeam
A disappointing read
Having recently read Dracula (another classic horror), I was somewhat disappointed by this book.
It started out ok, but as I read on I found that I didn't particularly... Read more
It started out ok, but as I read on I found that I didn't particularly... Read more
Published on 23 May 2009 by Blatant Biblioholic
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fiction > Classics
- Books > Fiction > Literary Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Psychological
- Books > Horror > Classic Horror
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
