DOCTOR JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, The Strange Case of. Robert Louis Stevenson's powerful allegory of dual personality,
Dr. Jekyll, through the agency of a drug, is enabled to assume at will a dwarfish, repulsive form embodying all the evil in his nature, so that in this shape, under the name of Edward Hyde, he may indulge his baser desires. A re newal of the same potion enables him to re assume the tall form of the benevolent physi cian, dominated by the better side of his per sonality —until the failure of the supply of the drug leads to the inevitable catastrophe.
The inception of the tale is traced to Steven son's recollections of nursery traditions of the notorious Deacon Brodie, who was a respectable artisan by day and a burglar by night, sup plemented by later reading of articles on sub consciousness. But the story actually shaped itself in a terrible dream while the author was suffering from a hectic fever. In three days
Stevenson had written a first draft of 30,000 words, only to burn it and to complete the final version in three days more. The story, pub lished in January 1886, in paper covers, had a sale of nearly 40,000 copies in six months in England alone, and was made the subject of sermons and editorials. It was extensively pirated in the United States, where, however, further popularized by three dramatizations, it made the author's reputation. In a letter to Stevenson, John Addington Symonds doubted ((whether anyone had the right so to scrutinize the abysmal depths of personality); adding, however, ((The art is burning and intense. The Peau de Chagrin disappears, and Poe's work is water. Also one discerns at once that this is an allegory of all two-natured souls who yield consciously to evil. Most of us are on the brink of educating a Mr. Hyde at some epoch of our