"Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde [+ Others]" by Robert Louis Stevenson

As I’m sure it is with most, I bought this book for the titular story. There’s a lot of interesting discussion to be had over “The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde,” the facet that most interests me being that the twist is so solidly stapled into pop-culture that it would be strange for someone not to know it. The original novella plays it as a mystery; I felt a strong focus on “who is this Mr. Hyde sullying the good Dr. Jeckel’s reputation through association” rather than them being the same individual being played for dramatic irony. It’s a late reveal, with Jeckel’s final confession being obtained shortly after he (as Hyde) kills himself to escape the consequences of his actions.

I’m sure there’s plenty of analysis on the story which has and could be written — which I would love to circle back to at some point — but what ended up being the most interesting to me about this collection were the other stories. Up until the unfortunate exception of “Weir of Hermiston,” I was beginning to believe that this would be the first short story collection which I enjoyed in its entirety. It’s a collection of strange and fantastic tales that somehow manage to have striking emotional impacts during their climactic moments. Specifically: “The Bottle Imp” — which, after reading, begets intriguing parallels to Harleen Ellison’s “Djin, no Chaser” (a comparison I’d like to revisit) — and “Markheim.” I enjoyed “The Body Snatcher,” but the aforementioned two were the highlights of the collection for me.

That leaves “Weir of Hermiston” which I actually enjoyed for the first couple of chapters (sections?). Unfortunately when the story broke away from the father and son conflict that grabbed my interest — and tried to make me read (wildly guessing) twenty pages on the nanny’s family history — I put it down. Upon doing so, I read the back cover and came to the conclusion that if the novella was unfinished, I had no obligation to actually finish what was there.

Frankly: every novella and short story in this book does genuinely deserve its own individual review. I’m not willing to do that at the moment, but there is a lot that could be said about all of them. At least from my end, it would be overwhelmingly positive.

Since I did not finish the book, I do not feel inclined to leave any kind of star rating, but I will say that I greatly enjoyed “The Bottle Imp” and “Markheim,” found “The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde” and “The Bodysnatcher” to be incredibly interesting, and have nothing nice to say about “Weir of Hermiston.”