Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Signet Classics) by Robert Louis Stevenson
|
List Price: Our Price: $1.01 You Save: $2.94 (74%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Signet Classics)
Book Review: Absolutely Captivating
Summary: 5 Stars
A wonderfully crafted masterpiece, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of the must-reads of all time. This beautiful piece of literature appeals to many different senses and emotions. It is inspiring to see a plot so innovative and novel in the way the story presents itself. This story is just absolutely amazing.
Written like an investigative report, Robert Louis Stevenson slow guides the reader through the story. The story progresses, not to slow and not to fast, but just enough to get the story moving and not lose the reader's interest. The story tells of how a Dr. Jekyll is able to separate the evil in him into an entirely different form- Mr. Hyde. I love how the reader is always anticipating what happens next as the reader is fed clues throughout the story, but the answer remains dangling and untouched- tempting readers to continue and read. The story is well-constructed in that readers can also see into the view of other characters and not just Mr. Utterson himself.
Stevenson's portrayal of the good and bad side of man is wonderful. I have never seen a book where the author portrays the evil in a person by an entirely different character. The different transformations and continual action scenes in the book kept me on my toes. The mood and atmosphere is set by Stevenson's vivid description of the environment. Because Stevenson's style is not complex for his sentences are really direct and straightforward, it was not burdensome to read the book.
I guarantee if you read this book, you will not be disappointed. It is a light and easy read, which you can probably finish in no time at all because Stevenson's writing makes you glued to the book- always anticipating the next action. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an absolute must-read.
Book Review: Ignore the movies, and read the book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) was a Scottish novelist and poet who is best remembered for his adventurous fiction - including Treasure Island (perhaps the greatest pirate story ever written), and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (one of the greatest horror stories every written). Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is actually something of a mystery. A lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson becomes aware of the existence of a man who seems to radiate evil, a man called Mr. Edward Hyde. But, to Utterson's consternation, it appears that Hyde is tied up with his good friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll. There seems to be no end to the evil of Mr. Hyde, for even when he dies, it appears that Hyde has one last, and terrible secret to reveal.
This is an excellent story, and it is easy to see why it has been as influential as it has been. It has been turned into more plays, movies, and television shows than can possibly be listed. It has been copied and parodied, and it has influenced many writers.
The story itself is very interesting, and surprisingly different than many movies you have ever seen. Instead of skulking about behind Mr. Hyde, much of the story actually takes place after the death of Mr. Hyde, and we get to watch the story of Jekyll and Hyde unwind before our eyes. Jekyll comes across as a sort of everyman, and we watch with horror as he embraces evil and is slowly destroyed by it.
I found this to be a very interesting story, much more interesting than I thought I would. If you really want to understand this classic of modern Western literature, then ignore the movies, and read the book. You will not be disappointed!
Book Review: You Think You Know
Summary: 5 Stars
Most readers may be surprised at just how coy and evasive this short novel is. We get only fleeting images of the villain and his transgressions. For a work that has become so well knit into our cultural standards and mores, it's perhaps remarkable how little actually goes on.
You think you know the story. But what most people actually know is the 1936 movie starring Frederic March. Who Hyde is, his relationship to Jekyll, even how one becomes the other: all of these have been changed in every movie, TV, stage, and comic book adaptation ever made.
For what's reputedly a horror novel, this book is remarkably unscary. Maybe in 1886, when its ideas were new, it was terrifying. But now, when its core idea has become part of our culture, it's more thought-provoking than frightening. As Stevenson hints at dribs and drabs of Freudian, Darwinian, post-colonial, and other ideas that have become common coin, remember that he wrote before any of these were popular notions.
Start right in on the novel. Vladimir Nabokov's introductory essay states a lot that is obvious, and should be read only after the novel itself. On balance, Dan Chaon's afterword, about the novel's cultural impact, is probably more revelatory, and more accessible to general audiences.
Remember, this book is probably not what you think you know. It's at once more ambitious, yet far harder to pin down, than the cheapened versions in the mass media. It's smart yet understandable, familiar yet strange. It's the kind of book too few writers create these days.
Book Review: Book Review: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Summary: 5 Stars
I really enjoyed reading this book, to me it was confusing at first then it got very interesting near the end. The novel is about a well respected doctor (Mr. Hyde) that invents a posion that can change a person into their alter ego. Dr. Jekyll drinks this posion, and becomes a character we know as (Mr. Hyde.) Mr. Hyde is known as a very disrupeted character that is responsible for the murder of Sir Danvers Carew. Before the Carew murder, Jekyll had become a disrupted person himself. After the Carew murder, Mr. Hyde is not seen nor heard from for a long time. The night of the Carew murder, Hyde leaves a note for Mr. Utterson. Also after Mr. Utterson received Mr. Hyde's letter he had received a dinner invitation from Dr. Jekyll that matched in handwritting to the letter from Mr. Hyde. After this Mr. Utterson investigates and later finds out that Mr. Hyde is only a figure of a posion. My Hyde is Dr. Jekyll's alter ego. At the end of the novel Hyde takes over Dr. Jekyll therefor, he kills himself. This novel was interesting because it makes you wonder whiel reading the novel, how is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde connected, and who really killed Carew? At first, I thought that Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll were good friends and Dr. Jekyll was lying for Mr. Hyde so that Mr. Utterson wont know his whereabouts. Later I thought that Dr. Jekyll was helping Mr. Hyde get away with the Carew murder, and was plotting to kill Mr. Utterson. It was even more interesting to find out that Mr. Hyde was only Dr. Jekyll's alter ego from a posion that Dr. Jekyll Invented.Book Review: Sight of Good and Evil struggle, before Freud's theories arise.
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) was a remarkable author from the Victorian Era. He has left us at least two masterpieces: "The Treasure Island" (1883) and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886) and some other good novels such as "The Black Arrow" (1888).
The present edition enriches the story with an introductory essay from Nabokov and a very interesting analysis by Dan Chaon as afterword.
It is amazing how writers and poets are able, thru intuition, to anticipate events or discoveries. When this book as first published, Sigmund Freud was studying with Charcot and not so many years later will produce his theoretic corpus of the human psyche. At some points the present story touches Freud's conceptualizations.
Dr. Jekyll suspect evil burdens every human soul, being an obstacle in its way to goodness. So he investigates and produces a drug that "liberates" the evil spirit and doing so he intend to be relived of it.
But Evil starts to grow each time more powerful and Mr. Hyde end cornering Dr. Jekyll into impotence and fear.
This story has captivated the public's imagination for more than a hundred years. Movies, comics and theater pieces had evolved from it. His tortured dual character is now a well known icon as Stoker's Dracula or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Even if you know more or less the story and its ending, reading this very short book is a powerful adventure.
A Classic you shouldn't let passes by unheeded!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.