by Robert Louis Stevenson
 
The first version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde terrified its own author (and his wife, especially). Longer, no doubt, and partially self-censored, written in a single sitting over three days, the final text nevertheless retains all the force of the dream that inspired it. Split personality, return of the repressed, death instinct—psychoanalysis was still in limbo when this son of a Scottish clergyman, in 1885, explored the depths of the psyche with unprecedented audacity. For it took audacity, in this era of triumphant Puritanism, to dissect our darkest impulses in this way. Elevated to the status of myth, repeatedly brought to the screen, simplified and betrayed, Dr. Jekyll demands a careful rereading: then one discovers a rigorous and inspired work, of an absolute richness of thought and modernity.