is a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and first published in 1886. It is about a London lawyer who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll and the misanthropic Edward Hyde.The work is known for its vivid portrayal of the psychopathology of a split personality; in mainstream culture the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has come to signify wild or bipolar behaviour.
In the early spring of 1885 Stevenson's thoughts turned to the idea of the duality of human nature, and how to incorporate the interplay of good and evil into a story.
One night he had a dream, and on wakening had the intuition for two or three scenes that would appear in the story. "In the small hours of one morning," says Mrs Stevenson,
"I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis.
he story begins when the lawyer Gabriel John Utterson hears from his relation Richard Enfield of an ambiguous, solitary, violent man called Hyde.
This Hyde is said to have walked over a girl who had fallen on the road, leaving her unharmed but terrified; whereupon Enfield ordered him, backed by several other people, to pay a fine to the girl's family.
Hearing this tale, Utterson is perturbed; a friend of his, Dr Jekyll, has made a will declaring that in the event of the doctor's death or "disappearance", Hyde should inherit all his property.
Suspecting trouble, Utterson seeks to investigate Hyde.
