The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The lawyer Utterson has a puzzle he can't leave alone. Why has his old friend, the respectable Dr. Jekyll, written a will leaving everything to a Mr. Edward Hyde, a violent, repellent stranger who seems to come and go through Jekyll's back door? As Hyde's crimes escalate and Jekyll swings between gaiety and terrified seclusion, Utterson digs toward a truth stranger than blackmail.

Everyone knows the phrase "Jekyll and Hyde," and almost nobody remembers that Stevenson built the book as a detective story, with the revelation held back until the final documents. Heard fresh, the mounting wrongness of foggy, gaslit London is genuinely eerie. At roughly three hours, it's one of the most efficient nightmares in English literature.

At roughly 27,200 words, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde runs about 3 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The edition linked here is available from Project Gutenberg under its US public-domain listing. Check the edition, translation, completeness and copyright rules where you live. LoudReader lets you browse and download Gutenberg books; they are not all stored on installation. To listen:

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