Jekyll and Hyde: a bedtime book about a double life in gaslit London

The most famous story of a double life — and perhaps the best bedtime book for anyone who likes a chill down the spine. The respectable Dr Jekyll invents a draught that lets out his dark half — Mr Hyde — and slowly loses control of him. All of it in the fog of gaslit London, through which Hyde walks at night. The book is short, read in two evenings, and everyone knows its ending — but few have read how Stevenson himself gets there.

An extract

The book opens calmly, with a portrait of the lawyer Utterson — and it is exactly that ordinariness that makes what follows frightening:

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“Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile.”

From this dry, reliable man the investigation begins that will lead to the darkest of discoveries.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). The text is in the public domain. The full English text is free on Project Gutenberg (link below).

Why it is worth reading tonight

Because it is not just a scary tale but a precise thought about a human being: that in each of us lives not one ‘I’ but several, and the respectable half keeps the disreputable one locked up all its life. Stevenson coined an image we still use — ‘a Jekyll and Hyde’ is now a byword. It reads fast and holds you to the last page; perfect for one or two dark autumn evenings.

About the author

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was a Scot from Edinburgh, author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped. He wrote Jekyll and Hyde in 1886, by his own account largely out of a nightmare. The idea of the double life came from his own Edinburgh, with its respectable New Town and its dark Old Town: a city of doubles Stevenson knew from childhood. He died far from home, on the island of Samoa in the Pacific.

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Where to go

Gaslit London — free, and right now. The very light Hyde walks in still survives in London: several hundred working gas lamps are still lit and maintained by hand — in Covent Garden, by the Temple, in Westminster and outside St James’s Palace. Go there at dusk and you’ll see the city of the book with your own eyes, for free.

Edinburgh — the real source. Stevenson modelled Jekyll’s double life on his own city. The Writers’ Museum in Lady Stair’s Close has a Stevenson room; entry is free. And nearby, in the Old Town, are the very streets and closes that lie behind the book.

Where to get it

Free and legal. The full English text is on Project Gutenberg. To find it in a library near you, use the Library Hub Discover catalogue. Links below.

To buy. An English edition is in every bookshop in Britain and costs little. For the Russian translation, try the Russian-language bookshops — Notre Locus. Check stock and price on the shop’s own site.