Books

London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1886. First U.K. and first hardcover edition., 1886. First edition. Preceded by the U.S. edition published four days earlier in the same year. A fine, bright, square copy of a book that seldom appears on the market. A classic of English literature and one of the greatest of all masterpieces of psychological and moral horror. The good doctor makes out his mysterious will advising his lawyer that in the event of his death all his possessions should pass into the hands of his "friend and benefactor Edward Hyde." Clute and Nicholls eds., THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION, page 1165 say, ".... a Faustian moral fable which takes the form of a tale of mystery and horror. It precedes Oscar Wilde's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1891), which in some respects resembles it, by five years, and is the prototype of all stories of multiple personality, transformation and possession; in some respects it is also a tale of drug dependency." Housed in a green…

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a gothic novella by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson first published in 1886. The work is also known as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or simply Jekyll & Hyde. It is about a London legal practitioner named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde.

First editions of 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' published by Longmans, Green & Co. in 1886 can be identified by their binding, which is usually in a brownish-red cloth with gilt lettering, and the date printed on the title page.