The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Centaur Classics) [The 100 greatest novels of all time - #84] #103972

"[Stevenson] seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins." —G. K. Chesterton "A masterpiece of concision." —Henry James "A fable that lies nearer to poetry than to ordinary prose fiction." —Vladimir Nabokov "Stevenson’s short stories are certain to retain their position in English literature. His serious rivals are few indeed." —Arthur Conan Doyle "Mr Hyde's sordid and perhaps deviant excesses are rendered more suggestive through being left undescribed." —Sarah Waters “All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil” 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 “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.