The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is perhaps one of the best gothic horror novels in history, standing tall amongst the likes of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein but, for all it’s infamy and for all the adaptations, the novel itself isn’t as widely read as you might think; I take it from personal experience, as someone who is new to classic literature but has, of course, grown up with it’s legends. Until the reading, I had never heard of the character Mr. Utterson and believed that the entirety of the suprisingly short novel was narrated from the perspective of Jekyll/Hyde if anyone; as it happens, the novel’s protagonist is a lawyer who has Jekyll as a client and only part of the text is from the vantage point of the titular character(s), and even that’s in the form of a letter.

I was suprised, when I found this novel, that it was only some 65 pages in length, to the point that many publishers print it alongside some of Stevenson’s other short stories and a wealth of annotations and background information, to pad out the book to sell more easily as a product.

This novel is as gripping as the other great gothic horrors, but perhaps isn’t as terrifying by modern standards; but this is, I increasingly feel, a symptom of Victorian literature: there’s very few horrors that took the imagination of those authors that hasn’t already been dreamt up, and doubled in horror, in 2010. Stevenson’s descriptions are vivid and tantalysing, and would’ve astounded the reader when it was published in 1886, but given we can basically replace our imaginations with TV, it’s hard to conjure up (based on Stevenson’s descriptions) an image as disturbing as one that can be simulated with a combination of CG and the fucked up mind of Tim Burton.

There’s an odd irony in the fact that, just as Dr. Jekyll (through his discovery) adopts a face and personality quite different yet still somehow, at it’s core, the same as his own, many stage and screen adaptations of Stevenson’s classic novel drop a great deal of the storyline, characters and subtleties of the original but maintain the core concept. To paraphrase (because it’s hard to hold open a book and type simultaneously) Dr. Jekyll “it seemed more express than the divided countenance I had become accustomed to call mine.” Rather than putting together a somewhat fragmented narrative as the novel does, jumping between Utterson being told a story by Enfield, Utterson’s own investigative narration, Lanyon’s letter and Jekyll’s closing statement of the case, directors often opt to follow (without narration) the chronological events of Jekyll and Hyde.

By all means read this novel, lit’s a rather unsettling examination of dual-personalities, half of which emerges from the legacy that the novel left, from the allegorical meaning behind the Jekyll/Hyde creature that emerges (Jekyll’s apparent struggle to know what to refer to himself as I found engaging), but also for the sheer enjoyment of the tale. I’ve often said that the lasting feature of gothic horror novels isn’t the imagery or the propensity of disturb, but more the psychological element, the reflection into one’s very soul and showing the harsh ugliness (and sometimes beauty) within.

P.S. Sorry for the short review, that new Sherlock Holmes series with the writers from Doctor Who starts soon. Oh, by the way, so that I can bend instead of break, my cardinal rule not to discuss personal matters, or anything not pertaining to the point, on this blog, I will only briefly mention that I got an internship at CNET UK and start on Wednesday.