1. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr
Hyde (Broadview Literary Texts) by
Robert Louis Stevenson
Pure Evil Beats Mostly Good
The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of
living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and
by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three
days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence.
His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In
another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde was published as a shilling shocker in 1886, and became an
instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen
Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When
Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed
by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its
opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever
written about the divided self. This University of Nebraska Press edition
is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on
the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals
on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font
that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in
which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a mythopoetic figure like
Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares
Stevensons creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde,
and Dickens. This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by
renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter
as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the
process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings,
is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, I went so far as to
have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-
looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being
inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and,
like Stevenson, not show Hydes face. (Also recommended: the edition of
Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster

2. Alright, so I've never read this book before (terrible I know). My Secret
Santa bought me this book, along with a bunch of others, as my present
and I finally had time to read it.
The plot is straightforward, starting off with a problem before gradually
growing into heightened suspense that pulls and leaves hints all over the
place towards the climax. Of course since this is a classic, much of the plot
twists are already known to the well read, so it wasn't much of a shock, but
it was interesting nonetheless. The metaphor/symbolism doesn't really
show itself until the very end where it blazes loud and clear with the writer's
subtle metaphors, or maybe not so subtle. It's written in 3rd omniescent,
before the end where it switches over to 1st.
I actually like how the story revolved around two people investigating the
actual main character of the book (or rather the person the story is about)
versus it just being about the person and his descent into the clutches of
evil. It was refreshing and gave every character their equal time in the
spotlight. The themes of this book are very skillfully p layed through
succinct prose. It wasn't overstated, nor written in a dense, complex way
that makes the reader pause and think a bit more harder than needed. The
writing was simple, direct, and to the point without being bogged down by
excess descriptions or philosophical/political musings.
Another plus was that the chapters were very short, so this book is a super
fast read, not to mention that it's only 54 pages long. I mean, if you can't sit
down and read that, I don't know what else to say. Okay, sure p erhaps the
font is a wee bit too small, and there is a lot more semicolons in his
sentences than any other story I've seen, but that shouldn't detract you.
The only real section that tends to drag was the final chapter, which was
from the perspective of Henry Jekyll. My mind started to wander a lot and I
found myself skimming a lot of the passages. (Okay, so maybe I was tired
and reading this around 1:30 in the morning) It's probably because there
was such a great buildup to the climax and when we get to his chapter
we're stuck reading about how he grew up and blah blah blah that wasn't
directly attached with the ending. I mean, we want to know what happens,
not how he was raised! By the middle of the chapter is when the real meat
of the story comes to its conclusion and I had my eyes glued to every
word, even though I had contemplated sleeping a few minutes earlier.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who likes to
read, and if you wanted to try some classics out, this would probably be
the easiest of them to do.
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