It’s rare that a book’s title becomes a staple of popular usage in the way that the phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” has come to signify a person who displays opposite moral character depending on the situation. How often one hears: “Oh, he was a regular ‘Jekyll and Hyde’,” and one knows that the person so described must have exhibited contrary  behavior, kind and upright, then cruel and depraved, the transition occurring without explanation or warning.  All of this originates with the disturbing novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886. Stevenson was a sick man, his lungs wracked with tuberculosis. He was not unacquainted with medicines and drugs ministered to ease his condition. He was also fascinated with the interplay of good and evil as both exist in the same heart and soul of each person. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde explores the manifestation of good and evil in the person of one, Dr. Jekyll, a good and upright member of the community, who, on the ingestion of a certain potion, is transformed into the odious sociopath, Mr. Hyde. Allusions to the detrimental effect of toxic substances, drugs or alcohol, on one’s behavior cannot be ignored. However, Stevenson’s work explores a deeper mystery as to how a human being can accommodate intention and conduct based in opposing moral camps. In this the novella is a cautionary tale to the notion then popular in England at the height of its industrialized empire – the imminent perfectibility of man. (Summary by Michael Hogan)

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