Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

In-12 de (4) ff., 141 pp., (1) p.
Original salmon cloth, title and publisher’s device to front cover in black, blue floral endpapers, slight rubbing to extremities, binding slightly stained. Housed in a custom brown cloth box.

180 x 118 mm.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
London, Longmans, Green, and Co, 1886.

First English edition, case-bound issue, which appeared a week after the wrapper issue.
The American edition was published four days before the London edition on 5 January 1886. Longmans had intended to publish in December 1885, but delayed publication until January, as they feared the book would be overlooked by readers during the Christmas rush.

"[Stevenson] achieved world-wide success with his 'shilling shocker' Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a moral allegory about the divided self and the problem of evil, the main incidents of which came to him in a dream" (ODNB).

The story of how Stevenson came to write this classic tale is by now well known: He was one night in the middle of a nightmare when Fanny, alarmed by his disturbance, woke him. Louis complained with irritation that she had interrupted a ‘fine bogy tale.’ Seizing his pen the following day he began to write down the story he had dreamed. Initially it was the Gothic horror of the story that excited him, and he produced a first draft at great speed, reading the story triumphantly to Fanny when he finished. But Fanny wasn’t happy with the story. She felt that it could be more than a Poe-like crawler, that it could be more morally pointed than Louis had fashioned it. Certainly in this case it can only be said that her comments did the story and Louis considerable good. Angrily the first draft was cast into the fire and he started again, this time producing the version of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde that we know (Calder).

Cette nouvelle naquit du cauchemar d’une nuit d’été. « Je viens de rêver d’une magnifique histoire de croque-mitaine », dit Stevenson à sa femme en s’éveillant. Et, cette histoire, il se mit à l’écrire avec une extraordinaire rapidité. C’est celle d’un homme, le docteur Jekyll, qui, obsédé par la découverte qu’en tout individu cohabitent deux êtres, l’un bon, l’autre mauvais, cherche et trouve le moyen d’un dédoublement physique. Grâce à l’absorption d’une substance chimique de son invention, il peut, à son gré, être tantôt l’un, tantôt l’autre de ces deux « moi ». Mais il lui faut prendre d’extrêmes précautions pour que personne, dans son entourage, ne se doute que le célèbre docteur Jekyll, excellent homme au physique agréable, se transforme, à certaines heures, en monstre hideux, qui, la nuit dans les quartiers sordides de Londres, attaque des enfants, des vieillards et se livre à toutes les turpitudes.
Dès sa publication, en 1886, l’œuvre eut un immense succès.

Exemplaire conservé dans sa reliure en toile saumon de l’éditeur, tel que paru.