The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. It is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde. The novella’s impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” having come to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next.
Dr. Jekyll was a scientist who wanted to create a potion that would separate good from evil in people. He creates the potion and drinks it, but it has the opposite effect on him — instead of separating his good qualities from his bad ones, it brings them all together into one person, who he names Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde is violent, cruel and evil. Dr. Jekyll wants nothing to do with him, because he knows what he is capable of doing — but Mr. Hyde won’t stop coming back until Dr. Jekyll lets him out again by drinking another vial of the potion!
Eventually, Mr. Hyde kills someone close to Dr. Jekyll (who was also his best friend) and this pushes him over the edge: He commits suicide so that there will be no more need for Mr. Hyde’s existence!
