The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde / Robert Louis Stevenson ; wood engravings by Barry Moser ; foreword by Joyce Carol Oates.—Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998, c1990.
157 p. : ill. ; 17 cm.
ISBN: 0803292406

1. Good and evil – Fiction. 2. Horror fiction. 3. Science fiction.

823.8

While out for a Sunday walk, Mr. Utterson, a very respectable lawyer, and his cousin Mr. Enfield pass by a door on a back street. The door is worn, blistered, discolored, and neglected. When he sees it, Enfield starts to relate a very odd story to his cousin about the occupant that lives behind the door, a Mr. Hyde. One late night he was walking along this street, he witnessed the collision of two pedestrians, Mr. Hyde and a young girl “of maybe eight or ten who was running as fast as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into each other naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground … it was hellish to see.” Enfield and the child’s family accost Hyde and confront him with his cruel indifference. Seeking to buy them off and avoid a scandal he offers to pay restitution of one hundred pounds. He unlocks a door on the street, the very one that reminded Enfield of the story, steps inside, and returns with ten pounds in coin, and a check for ninety pounds drawn on the account of a very prominent citizen, whom Enfield would prefer not to name to his cousin. The amazing thing to Enfield was that the check, which he assumed must be a forgery or a fake, is honored by the bank the next morning.

Mr. Utterson, however, already knows the name on the check. He knows because he knows that the door morally deformed Mr. Hyde unlocked is the rear entrance to the home of his friend and client, the upright citizen, Dr. Henry Jekyll. He returns home, and from his safe he takes out the will of Dr. Jekyll, and rereads the very strange instruction, “in the case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S., etc. all his possessions were to pass into the hand of ‘his friend and benefactor, Edward Hyde’” not only that, “but in the case of Dr. Jekyll’s disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months,’” Hyde would also inherit all. What is the hold that this grubby little man has over Jekyll? Utterson is determined to find out.