Books like The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde & Weir of Hermiston

Ah, the nineteenth century - when sentences rolled off the tongue and bachelors had dastardly fun. Stevenson wrote this "sparsely-printed shilling novel" (as The Times called it) in 1886; a bit after Dickens, a touch before Conan Doyle. As soon as I sat down with it, I felt as if I was slipping onto the chaise longue with a great storyteller, ready for psychoanalysis by proxy.Two things I liked about this book: its structure and its treatment of theme. Structurally, it builds to a finale by the final two chapters being contained in letters found at the scene. They take us from a gentlemanly third person narrative right into the thick of things. It creates an extra suspense, like a locked box in a ghoulish conjuring trick. Thematically, Stevenson engages with a universal fear about our ability to control our urges while keeping the nature of the beast discreetly unnamed. It releases anyone who's ever had an impure or guilty thought - that's you too! - to empathise with Jekyll's predicament.For a full review, see my blog.