A Masterpiece of Horror
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1886.
Price: $7,500.00
About the item
First English edition, issue with the “6” in the date on upper wrapper changed by hand from “5”. Half-title with list of works on verso, ads for Longman’s Magazine on inner front wrapper, inner back wrapper advertising novels by Whyte-Melville, outer back wrapper advertising The Dynamiter and two works by Bret Harte. 1 vols. 8vo. A Masterpiece of Horror. Original wrappers. Soiled, small chip from upper inner edge, repair to outer corner of upper wrapper, several repairs to spine; still, a very good copy of a fragile rarity. Beinecke I:349.
Item #324024
An attractive copy of this classic of English literature, and one of the greatest of all masterpieces of psychological and moral horror. It is “... a Faustian moral fable which takes the form of a tale of mystery and horror. It precedes Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), which in some respects resembles it, by five years, and is the prototype of all stories of multiple personality, transformation and possession; in some respects it is also a tale of drug dependency.” (Clute and Nicholls, eds., The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 1993, p. 1165).
