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1890s: If Hyde dies, surely Jekyll dies too? What if one comes back to haunt London once again?
1890s: If Hyde dies, surely Jekyll dies too? What if one comes back to haunt London once again?
Seven years after the death of Edward Hyde, a stylish gentleman shows up in foggy London claiming to be Dr Henry Jekyll.
Jekyll’s faithful lawyer and confidant Mr Utterson however, declares him to be an impostor because Jekyll and Hyde were one and the same.
But as the man goes about charming Jekyll’s friends and reclaiming his estate, the bodies of potential challengers start piling up.
Utterson starts to question his own sanity. The two faces of Mr Jekyll and Mr Hyde….who should he believe?
The world of Jekyll and Hyde’s London is recreated in sight, sound, smell and deathly stares…
“A sulfurous yellow fog, so thick it muffled the chimes of the Sunday church bells, had fastened over night to London and refused to be dislodged by eve the stiffest of breezes. It smothered domes and spires, blurred chimneys and gables, smudged walls and windows, and altogether turned the city into an immense spectral museum, through which even the most audacious traveller proceeded warily, never certain of what strange sights might lurk in the next chamber.”
That is the street where seven years before this novel starts, a man called Hyde had scuttled out of that door, and slithered into the night,and enacted crimes so evil that they still had the power to chill the blood, even when viewed through the misted window of memory”
Jekyll/Hyde lived in a house with dissecting rooms at the back.
What better place than the most gothic city of them all, and home to the author of course, than to send Utterson up here via the station at Waverley. Utterson and Slaughter have corresponding partners here by the name of Theodore Macleod and sons
Susan: @thebooktrailer
I’ m always a bit dubious about novels which take on a classic, write the sequel or the prequel to events in a novel many have loved for centuries. But the sequel if you like, of such an iconic novel as Jekyll and Hyde made me want to read it. I was intrigued as I’d often wondered what would happen if one of them returned. This novel, short at some 240 pages, is a gripping way to find out.
It’s a story within a story as we’ve all heard of the Jekyll and Hyde – we use it in speech nowadays to illustrate how someone can have two faces, be two faced, be nice and then suddenly turn horrible without any warning. It’s been a while since I read the classic but this did feel very authentic, as if I could just jump straight in and try to start discrediting the man claiming to be Jekyll along with the lawyer Utterson. Riding those hansom cabs along cobbled stones, trying to breathe amongst the pea soup Fog of London. All the classic ingredients are there and more.
It’s quite relevant to todays world as well what with identity theft and being able to be whoever you want to be on line. The original themes of madness and descent into madness was there, mixed with a return to the horrors every one thought left behind..
Like reviving the ghost of a classic story out of his coffin, dusting off the cobwebs and having a really good look at what happened back then.
Exciting and fun and the cover is one of the best I’ve seen this year
Destination: London, Edinburgh Author/Guide: Anthony O’Neill Departure Time: 1890s
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