Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Exam board: AQA, Edexcel, OCR, Eduqas; SQA
Level & Subject: GCSE English Literature; Nationals and Highers
First teaching: September 2015
Next exam: June 2025
This edition of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is perfect for GCSE-level students: it comes complete with the novel, plus an introduction providing context, and a glossary explaining key terms.
‘He put the glass to his lips, and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change…’
A series of brutal incidents – a murder, the trampling of a child – leads lawyer Mr Utterson to try to find out more about the repulsive perpetrator Mr Hyde. More importantly, he begins to question how Hyde is connected to Utterson’s old friend, the respectable Dr Jekyll.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel, with its concern with doubles and the ‘dual nature of man’, takes the reader into the darker regions of late Victorian London, as Utterson begins to unravel the mystery and confront the horror of Hyde’s true identity.
Alexandra Melville is a writer and educator. Formerly a Head of English, she has taught English at sixth form and secondary schools in London. She has examined for AQA GCSE English and has written educational resources for Fuel Theatre, the British Library and HarperCollins.