DK Classics: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Rating:
Summary: An informative but intrusive retelling of this classic story
Review: Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is one of the classics of horror literature because it provides the paradigmatic example of the "werewolf," the human being with a monstrous alter ego. However, originally it was much more of a mystery story and that is the best way of describing this adaptation of Stevenson's novella by Michael Lawrence. The book's complex structure is simplified and Lawrence employs a narrator to help retell the tale. The adaptation is certainly competent enough, but the story clearly takes a back seat to the illustrations in this particular volume.

This Eyewitness Classics adaptation of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is full of the illustrations and details we have come to associate with books put out by DK Publishing. A two-page spread before the first chapter details The Two Face of London, contrasting the rich West End of Victorian London with Soho area where criminals stalked the poor. Background about how Victorian gentlemen dressed for evening and how women were second-class citizens is provided. Once the story commences there are not only illustrations by Ian Andrew depicting events in the novella, but the borders are usually filled with small photographs and detailed text amplifying the action. One such note might explaining the gas lighting system in use at the time while another actually explains the significance of the key Jekyll supposedly gave to Hyde. These pictures and notes are certainly informative, but they are also somewhat intrusive, especially when the reader is trying to decide when they should read each of these additional bits of information.

The attempt here is to provide something more than a straightforward presentation of the novella without going so far as to provide an annotated version. The information provided is quite useful for young readers, for the most part, but their intrusiveness may well get in the way of enjoying the story itself. The illustrations by Andrew are stylistically evocative of the shadowy, misty streets of London we associate with tales of violent crimes such as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." A final spread in the back of the book looks at the Legend of the story, which includes the various dramatic versions on stage and screen. More interesting are the insights into how the story reflected what people were thinking about evolution, psychology, and drugs at the end of the 19th-century. The best solution might be to just try and read the story without always resorting to the additional information and then going back and filling in the details (maybe on a chapter by chapter basis). This approach is used in a pair of other "horror" classics, "Dracula" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," in the DK Classics series.