The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror: Penguin Classics

Robert Louis Stevenson

Sep 2019 · Penguin Classics · Narrated by Rory Kinnear

About this audiobook

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Olivier Award winner Rory Kinnear, star of Penny Dreadful. Kinnear is also known for his portrayal of Bill Tanner in Spectre and for his role in The Imitation Game. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Robert Mighall.


Published as a 'shilling shocker', Robert Louis Stevenson's dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with 'damnable young man' Edward Hyde, the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer, and the final revelation of Hyde's true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil. The other stories in this volume also testify to Stevenson's inventiveness within the gothic genre: 'Olalla', a tale of vampirism and tainted family blood, and 'The Body Snatcher', which shows the murky underside of medical practice.

"[Audiobooks] make Victorian stories like this one - narrated by the actor Rory Kinnear - much more accessible. You still have to listen carefully, but dialogue that might otherwise seem stilted in modern times is brought to life by Kinnear." - i News

About the author

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. The son of a prosperous civil engineer, he was expected to follow the family profession but was finally allowed to study law at Edinburgh University. Stevenson reacted forcibly against the Presbyterianism of both his city's professional classes and his devout parents, but the influence of Calvinism on his childhood informed the fascination with evil that is so powerfully explored in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson suffered from a severe respiratory disease from his twenties onwards, leading him to settle in the gentle climate of Samoa with his American wife, Fanny Osbourne.