Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

A lawyer’s investigation

Mr Utterson is a dry, decent London lawyer. On a Sunday walk his kinsman Mr Enfield tells him about a door in a back street, a man who trampled a child and didn’t care, and a check signed with a very respectable name. Utterson knows the name. He also holds the will of his friend Dr Henry Jekyll, which leaves everything to a “Mr Edward Hyde”. Most readers know the secret before they open the book. What still surprises is how Stevenson tells it: as a mystery, through a lawyer’s questions, locked doors and letters not to be opened until a death.

Why it works for learners

It’s short. Many learners never finish a novel in a new language, and this is one you can finish in days rather than months. The setting is foggy, nighttime London, and the vocabulary is law, medicine and respectability: will, witness, doctor, door, key, letter, crime, reputation. Utterson is a patient guide who asks the questions you want asked, so you’re never far from understanding what’s at stake. The last two chapters, written as documents, change voice entirely, which is good practice in reading a different register.

Which level to start at

B1 is ideal. The plot is compact and the atmosphere survives simplification well. A2 works if you want a first finished novel. At C1 and C2 you’ll hear Stevenson’s precise, formal Victorian prose, a pleasure once you’re ready for it; read-along highlighting helps you through its longer sentences.

Read next

• The Picture of Dorian Gray, another respectable man with a secret
• Frankenstein, science, ambition and their consequences
• The Invisible Man, Wells’s scientist who goes too far