Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece of the duality of good and evil in man's nature sprang from the darkest recesses of his own unconscious-during a nightmare from which his wife awakened him, alerted by his screams.
More than a hundred years later, this tale of the mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll and the drug that unleashes his evil, inner persona-the loathsome, twisted Mr. Hyde-has lost none of its ability to shock.
Its realistic police-style narrative chillingly relates Jekyll's desperation as Hyde gains control of his soul-and gives voice to our own fears of the violence and evil within us.
Written before Freud's naming of the ego and the id, Stevenson's enduring classic demonstrates a remarkable understanding of the personality's inner conflicts-and remains the irresistibly terrifying stuff of our worst nightmares.