A respectable London doctor brews a draught that lets him step out of his own reputation — becoming Edward Hyde, a smaller, younger, wholly amoral man who can do as he pleases and leave the doctor's good name unstained. Stevenson tells it as a lawyer's slow, dread-filled investigation: a trampled child, a murdered MP, a locked cabinet, and a confession that only arrives at the very end. The book that gave English its shorthand for the two people inside one skin — and it still reads like a fever the century couldn't sweat out.