Recent Reinterpretations of Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Book excerpt: This examination of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) and its reinterpretations presents original interviews with novelists Emma Tennant and Valerie Martin, and playwright David Edgar, framed by analysis of their works. In so doing, it moves away from common division between those who write literature and those who write about literature. Its examination of Stevenson's original novel and its comprehensive survey of the history of Jekyll and Hyde reveals that these three late 20th-century writers react against the tradition of reinterpretations and recover Stevenson's structure. Arguing that their returns to a Victorian text are motivated by contemporary concerns about class and gender politics that find an apt vehicle for exploration in Stevenson's story, this book identifies a trend of neo-Victorianism...