The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde — The Companion Edition (eBook)

Everybody knows there is a secret at the heart of this book. Almost nobody has read it the way Stevenson built it — as a case, assembled document by document, with the truth locked in the final chapters.

This is Robert Louis Stevenson's complete Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde — all ten chapters, unabridged — in the text of the 1886 first edition: a novella of about 25,500 words, written from a nightmare in the autumn of 1885 and published by Longmans in January 1886 as a one-shilling "shocker" that became a classic within the year. A respectable doctor, an inexplicable will, a door in a by-street, a murder in the moonlight — and a lawyer, Mr. Utterson, following the paper trail through fog-bound London because nobody will tell him the truth outright.

Around the novella stands a companion written for reading together, all of it original to this edition: an introduction that separates what is documented — the nightmare, the three days of writing, the shilling-shocker publication — from the beloved legend of the burnt first draft; a Who's Who; four explainers (Victorian London and Soho; the law and the will; the science and degeneration theory of the 1880s; period money and customs); a short life of Stevenson; a reading schedule with a one-week, two-meeting plan; and twenty-four discussion questions, spoiler-fenced by meeting, so a first-time reader reaches the final documents exactly as unprepared as Utterson does.

The novella's text is public domain worldwide. All companion material is original to this edition. This is an independent publication, not affiliated with or endorsed by any stage or screen adaptation.

Formats: EPUB eBook ($9.99, this listing). Paperback ($14.99) and hardcover ($24.99) follow on KDP; the printable Book Club Kit is available in this store.