“The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson

“The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” could go under “Detective stories”, but I’ve decided to place it in “Psychological prose”, because to me its psychological side matters most.

It’s the final part I re-read most often – the confession written by Dr Jekyll during his last and unhappy days. When the curse he’d brought upon himself finally got hold of him, when the crime brought about the punishment and he finally realised the hopelessness of his situation, his final confession showed such deep understanding of human nature and such complexity of the psychology of common mortals that I can’t help coming back over and over again to this source of wisdom and bitter truths. And beautiful English makes this experience sweet rather than bitter.

Just one amazing point: Dr Jekyll was forgiven all mortal sins, all crimes committed in his second self – even a murder. What he wasn’t forgiven was a momentary vainglorious thought. That was what finally brought the grave punishment upon him. Definitely there is something to think about in this: even the most virtuous of us have, I’m sure, more than once been guilty of this particular sin.

The story of gradual deterioration of his moral sense, under the influence of his transforming draught, is both fascinating and scary. The fate of the unfortunate Henry Jekyll is heartbreaking: you can’t help pitying him, even knowing that he – of all people – had nobody but himself to blame. The apparent impunity of his double existence was not a true one – and the punishment it finally resulted in was far more horrible than anything he could have received under normal circumstances, even including the gallows. The saddest part of all is that he brought about the deaths of two more people but himself – two genuinely good people, Sir Danvers Carew and his own good old friend Dr Hastie Lanyon.

Impunity doesn’t exist: that’s just one of the things the author seems to be driving at. I could think of a few more, but they would all be revolving around this core one. So I’ll stop now and just recommend this book to you, dear reader, if for some reason you haven’t read it yet. It’s not long, and it’s definitely worth the time you’ll spend reading.