The last time I read STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE(the true title) was when I was very much younger. I liked it well enough, but my favorite Stevenson work was, and still is, TREASURE ISLAND. It had everything a young boy liked. Pirates, adventure, and pirates.
Not really a forgotten book, more likely an ignored book by today’s younger readers, I decided to reread this one after so long for Patti’s Forgotten Books meme this week because I covered one of the many film versions for Todd Mason's Overlooked Movies Tuesday past.
Still this was a good one. From a much older adult perspective, I find I enjoyed this classic a bit more than way back then.
One of the most adapted works, whatever the medium, of all time, none I’ve ever seen was close to the book. You know the story. Man delves into areas best left alone and pays the ultimate price, being caught up in the evil desires of his Edward Hyde persona, a creature freed of all moral compass. Jekyll is usually portrayed as a young man with hubris that gets his comeuppance in the end. In the book, I hadn’t remembered, Jekyll is an older man. Hyde is a short fellow not really malformed. But the aura of evil he gives off make people in his presence uncomfortable.
If you haven’t read this one, recommended.
For more forgotten books, check out Patti Abbott over at Pattinase on Friday.
Yeah, Treasure island is still my fave, and all the take offs on it. But I liked Jekyll and Hyde pretty well. Read it much later, though, when I was in my 30s or so
Great choice, Randy. Not forgotten, but often ignored.
I certainly hope this is *not* forgotten! It’s one of the first books on which I wrote one of my now trademark thematic analogies (way back in the 9th grade!) comparing and contrasting it with The Picture of Dorian Gray. Unlike this novella Stevenson’s supernatural short stories are definitely forgotten but also well worth reading.
Been a very long time since I read this one. Never a favorite, not even a Stevenson favorite (I like Treasure Island and Kidnapped too) I only read it that once, though I have seen more than one film version.
We’re going to see the stage version of Jekyll and Hyde next month.
I almost did a double-take… Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde forgotten!!! It just can’t be. And it saddens me that it is being ignored. It is one of those books that I can read repeatedly. Remember seeing an off-shoot of it, Mary Reilly. Pretty decent.
My Uncle Charlie used to tell of the first time he was really frightened. He was about five-years-old and was watching a stage version of Jekyll and Hyde when the character suddenly morphed into Hyde; he had bad dreams for days. This would have been one hundred years ago.