Description

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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, novella by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, published in 1886. The names of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the two alter egos of the main character, have become shorthand for the exhibition of wildly contradictory behaviour, especially between private and public selves.The tale-told largely from the perspective of Mr. Gabriel John Utterson, a London lawyer and friend of Dr. Henry Jekyll-begins quietly, with an urbane conversation between Utterson and his friend Mr. Richard Enfield. The latter tells how, returning home in the early hours of the morning, he witnessed a "horrible" incident: a small girl, running across the street, was trampled by a man named Mr. Edward Hyde, who left her screaming on the ground. After being caught, Hyde, who has a face that inspires loathing, agreed to pay the child's family, and he retrieved from a dilapidated building a check from the account of a respected man. Enfield assumes that Hyde is blackmailing that man, whom Utterson knows to be his client Jekyll.