The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror: Robert Stevenson

His innovative thriller, as shocking now as when it was first published, the Penguin Classics edition of Robert Louis Stevenson`s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror is edited with an introduction by Robert Mighall.

Published as a `shilling shocker`, Robert Louis Stevenson`s dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll`s strange association with the `damnable young man` Edward Hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde`s true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity`s basest capacity for evil. The other stories in this volume also testify to Stevenson`s inventiveness within the Gothic tradition: `Olalla`, a tale of vampirism and tainted family blood, and `The Body Snatcher`, a gruesome fictionalisation of the exploits of the notorious Burke and Hare.

This edition contains a critical introduction by Robert Mighall, which discusses class, criminality and the significance of the story`s London setting. It also includes an essay on the scientific contexts of the novel and the development of the idea of the Jekyll-and-Hyde personality.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh, the son of a prosperous civil engineer. Although he began his career as an essayist and travel writer, the success of Treasure Island (1883) and Kidnapped (1886) established his reputation as a writer of tales of action and adventure. Stevenson`s Calvinist upbringing lent him a preoccupation with predestination and a fascination with the presence of evil, themes he explored in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and The Master of Ballantrae (1893).