Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

About Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson explores the very nature of man in this classic horror novel.

“Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.”

Robert Louis Stevenson’s masterpiece of the duality in man’s nature sprang from the darkest recesses of his own unconscious—during a nightmare from which his wife awakened him, alerted by his screams. 

More than a hundred years later, this tale of the mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll and the drug that unleashes his evil, inner persona—the loathsome, twisted Mr. Hyde—has lost none of its ability to shock. Its realistic narrative chillingly relates Jekyll’s desperation as Hyde gains control of his soul—and gives voice to our own fears of the violence and evil within us.

Written before Freud’s naming of the ego and the id, Stevenson’s enduring classic demonstrates a remarkable understanding of the personality’s inner conflicts—and remains the irresistibly terrifying stuff of our worst nightmares.


Includes the Famous Cornell Lecture on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Vladimir Nabokov

With an Introduction by Kelly Hurley
and an Afterword by Dan Chaon