by Robert Louis Stevenson
Another novel in the Omnibus curriculum, another fiction book I hadn’t read, another book I’m glad I have now.
The Jekyll and Hyde gist/twist is a cultural staple. I’m fairly certain my first exposure to the story was in “Hyde and Hare,” a Bugs Bunny version that I shared with my class.
I didn’t know until reading some background material that “Christmas crawlers” was a genre, as in, publishers kept putting out creepy/horror books for the holidays. This book got pushed to the start of the new year due to the glut in the late 1885 market, but that didn’t hurt sales at all, selling over 40k copies in six months.
Whatever I thought I thought, the plot and the format kept my attention. The two-sides of the same personality bit is true, but also not. It’s actually more one sided with different levels of exposure. That maybe makes it even more disturbing.