Co-authors McNally and Florescu, professors at Boston College, have established a following among readers of horror fiction and devotees of popular culture with their previous joint effort, In Search of Dracula (1972; rev. ed., 1994), and Florescu’s In Search of Frankenstein (1997). Their study of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde completes the trilogy of nineteenth-century horror classics. As in the earlier works, the authors search for the historical and real-life sources or inspiration for these chilling tales that blend imagination and factual evidence to create memorable characters engaged in horrifying deeds.
Overview/Organization:Theme of Duality:The authors have planned the work to appeal to readers interested in learning more about the evolution of their favorite horror stories. To reveal the proto-type of Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, McNally and Florescu devote a prologue, an introduction, and the first two chapters of their work to providing a context and biographical information on William Deacon Brodie, an eighteenth-century resident of Edinburgh—a highly respected, upright citizen by day; and, by night, a gambler and burglar.Chapters three through seven follow the career of Stevenson from his youth in Edinburgh to his death on the island of Samoa. In the eighth chapter, the authors discuss the many media adaptations of Stevenson’s story, especially those in English and German. Additionally, Appendix A offers a chronology of Stevenson, listing events of his life, his principal works, and major events of the time; Appendix B, a travel guide for readers who might want to visit the scenes in Edinburgh familiar to both Brodie and Stevenson.
The concluding portion of the book contains a fairly extensive bibliography of works related to Stevenson and Brodie; an annotated listing of media presentations of Jekyll and Hyde, beginning with silent movies; and a listing of internet sites related to this popular culture phenomenon.
Caveats:Throughout this study, McNally and Florescu emphasize concepts of duality or double identity, beginning with contrasting aspects of Edinburgh in its Old Town and New Town and of the residents, Calvinist Protestants who accept the idea of evil as a sub-current found in even the most righteous citizens.The authors reconstruct the life of Brodie, son of a prosperous Edinburgh carpenter and cabinet maker, with details suggesting his double nature. His wild and wasted youth, given over to cockfighting and gambling, is set against Brodie’s public image once he has inherited his father’s business, his mansion, and his privileged place in Edinburgh society. Unable to restrain himself, Brodie soon takes up with bad companions and, under cover of darkness, turns to a life of crime. Masterminding robberies of businesses and homes of the wealthy, to which his position in the community give him access by day, Brodie is finally caught for the robbery of the government tax office and hanged on the gallows.
McNally and Florescu continue the theme of human duality in the chapters devoted to Stevenson. His fascination with Brodie began, according to them, when he was a young and often sickly child, whose nurse, Allison Cunningham, entertained him with stories about Brodie—presumably prompted by a Brodie chest that sat in the nursery.
These tales, they propose, not only account for Stevenson’s life-long fascination with double identity, leading eventually to his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but also underlie the writer’s somewhat bohemian adolescence. Yet, while there can be no doubt that the Brodie story appealed to Stevenson—in that he attempted several times to make it into a play before settling on the fiction form that was to establish his reputation as a serious writer—most readers will question whether his teen-age rebellion should be attributed to Brodie’s influence.
Conclusion:Readers should also exercise caution in accepting the authors’ interpretation of Stevenson’s tale. Much is made of the likelihood that Jekyll/Hyde is a homosexual, but the evidence offered does not support this charge.Upon telling Utterson of his first encounter with Hyde, who had knocked down a child and trampled over her, Enfield explains that he avoided asking questions of the man because “the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.” Queer Street is an English slang phrase dating back to the early nineteenth century to refer to the imaginary address of a person in any sort of difficulty, and it still carries that meaning today. The word queer meaning “homosexual” did not enter the language until 1932, according to the OED. In addition, relying on Johnson’s dictionary to define rambles as walking with a lustful purpose is a mistake. Johnson often defined words in a joking, non-serious manner.
Further, the work as a whole is marred by careless editing and/or proofreading—various spelling and punctuation errors—not to mention apparent slapdash research. Sir Walter Scott’s death date is given as 1822 instead of 1832; Percy Bysshe Shelley’s is correctly given as 1822 in one instance and 1828 in another; Mary Shelley’s birth date is given as 1792, although she was born in 1797. Even Stevenson suffers in being described as dying in his fortieth year, when he was actually forty-four. Perhaps, if another printing is warranted, these errors can be cleared away.
Despite the flaws, readers will find much of value in this work. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, more than a century after its initial publication, continues to appeal to each successive generation and to a basic human interest in the dual nature of humankind. In Search of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has answers for many questions a curious reader might raise.
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