Customer Reviews
THIS IS GREAT! - By: Mehajabeen Farid, 29 Apr 2008 
This book is a Ladybird Horror Classic book, which is a series of books; the collection includes Dracula, Frankenstein & the Mummy. Obviously, this book isin it too. It is quite well known & loved but still it is a horrifying story. Here is a brief summary of it.
Characters
The main characters are Dr. Jekyll/ Mr Hyde, Mr Utterson, Mr Enfield, Dr Lanyon & Poole. Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde are one person.
Settings
The story is setin a few different parts of a big busy city: a dismal place where Mr Hyde lived; a busy place where Mr Utterson, & his good friend, Mr Enfield walked on Sundays; finally, the home Dr Jekyll where he had his laboratory & his big lounge where he had a party & discussion with Mr Utterson.
Plot
There are two sides of one man: Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde. Dr Jekyll is a good, popular person; on the other hand, Mr Hyde was ill natured & hated. He goes out doing bad things & goes into the good body so he doesn't get caught. What will happen if anyone ever finds out?
Rating & recommendation
I would rate this book 9/ 10 & would recommend it to all children who like scary stories!
Useful Classroom Tool - By: K. Adams, 10 May 2007 Clearly this is a classic masterpiece & I won't go into the details of the story, however my review is more based around the practical aspects of this particular edition. It is one of the only books that I purchase every year & am able to sell on to my students. My students have to study this text & because of the low cost version even my poorest students are able to purchase a copy for themselves because of this edition. This is an excellent educational tool as it allows the students to annotate their copy which is extremely useful when they sit to do their coursework. Thank you Dover Thrift for making it possible for my students to succeed.
A psychological drama of the dual nature of man - By: Daniel Jolley, 29 Nov 2002 
The tale of Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde has been quite familiar to me for as long as I can remember, but only now have I read the original short novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is unfortunate that familiarity has robbed modern readers of the suspense that almost certainly was engenderedin Stevenson's contemporary audience. Nor can I attribute a strong hint of terrorin these pages, partly because of the plot structure. This is not a straightforward story; we don't follow Dr. Jeckyllin his experimentation. Rather, we are introduced to Jeckyll & Hyde through Jeckyll's lawyer Mr. Utterson. Having drawn up Jeckyll's will to leave everything to Hyde should he disappear, he is most concerned for his client & friend upon learning that Mr. Hyde is a misshapen monster of a man responsible for trampling a young girlin the street. The first half of the book follows Utterson's attempts to discover this Mr. Hyde for himself. The final half of the book contains the story of Jeckyll & Hide, told firstin the words of a mutual friend & doctor & ultimatelyin an account of events penned by the unfortunate Dr. Jeckyll.
It goes without saying that the heart of the story revolves around the duality of the human mind. Each of us has a dark side as well as a good side, & the majority of individuals attempt to disguise any bad, uncontrollable aspects of their natures from the public. Dr. Jeckyll had a predilection for thoughts & acts which he & society frowned upon (although what these acts were is never revealed); as he neared middle age, his life became defined by a continuous inner struggle to keep on the straight & narrow path. He often failed, so he came up with the idea of totally separating his evil nature from his good one. Through the use of chemistry, he developed a solution that, when ingested, transformed him into a different personain both body & mind, one which had free reign to indulge anonymouslyin those worldly delights Dr. Jeckyll secretly lusted after. He thought that his original persona would then be freed of the guilt of his desires, while his Mr. Hyde persona could satiate himselfin performing guilty actions without any moral restraint. As is only natural, the dark side grew stronger as time passed, & the person of Dr. Jeckyll found himselfin more of a quandary than he ever dreamed of before giving birth to Mr. Hyde.
Inner conflict between the good & badin ourselves is something every reader can easily understand, & it is this psychological aspect of Stevenson's famous short novel that accounts for the tale's continuing popularity. It is a quick & absorbing read, but the method of the tale's presentation is a slight weaknessin my opinion. We can only watch the human drama from a third person perspective, & I would like to have gotten more deeply inside the mind of Jeckyll & Hyde. Still, this is a classic of literature that will retain its placein popular culture for untold years to come. As for the afterword by Jerome Charynin the Bantam edition of the book, I must say I could have done without it. It does provide some interesting background on Stevenson, but its psychological assumptions & surmises struck me as overdramatic & groundless. The story of Jeckyll & Hyde stands strongly on its own merits & does not need to be accompanied by psychobabble.
A story of the struggle between good and evil. - By: , 11 Dec 1998 I loved this book, it was very well written & is a thought provoking story. Most people seem to think that Dr. Jekyll was a good person & that the horrible Mr. Hyde a whole different person. But you should consider how the doctor handles all of this.
