Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Spoiler warning: this section covers the whole plot, including the ending.

Chapter 1: Story of the Door

Mr Utterson, a reserved lawyer, goes for a walk with his cousin Enfield. Enfield describes a night when a small, unpleasant man named Hyde knocked a young girl down in the street and trampled over her. Hyde then paid her family with a cheque signed by a gentleman of standing, and Enfield will not say who signed it. Enfield also points out a door on a dark street that Hyde went into. The two men agree never to mention the matter again, yet Utterson cannot let the story go. The chapter sets up the puzzle that drives the book: who is the respected man behind that cheque, and what is his link to Hyde?

Chapter 2: Search for Mr Hyde

Utterson studies the will of his friend Dr Henry Jekyll. It leaves everything to Edward Hyde if Jekyll dies, or if he disappears for more than three calendar months. Troubled, the lawyer goes looking for Hyde and waits by the door Enfield showed him. Eventually he meets Hyde face to face, and the encounter leaves him uneasy, though he cannot say exactly why. Later, Jekyll's butler, Poole, tells him that Mr Hyde has a key to the house. The chapter moves Utterson from simple curiosity to real concern for his friend. Hyde now seems a genuine threat, and Utterson's sense of duty grows with every new detail.

Chapter 3: Dr Jekyll Was Quite at Ease

Utterson raises the will with Jekyll directly. Jekyll refuses to talk about Hyde and seems calm, almost untroubled. He asks Utterson to help Hyde once Jekyll is no longer here or is taken away, and Utterson reluctantly agrees. Jekyll's ease is what unsettles Utterson most. He has no proof of anything, and a friend's calm is hard to challenge without evidence. The conversation shows how much Utterson values the friendship, and how little he can do with a suspicion alone. He leaves the house with his doubts intact, and the reader is left with the same unease.

Chapter 4: The Carew Murder Case

A maid sees a violent attack from her window. Sir Danvers Carew, a man of high position, is beaten to death in the street by Hyde, who uses a heavy walking stick. The murder shocks the city. Police bring the broken stick to Utterson, who recognises it as one he once gave to Jekyll. In Hyde's rooms, officers find clothes flung about and a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. They also find the other half of the stick and the stub of a green cheque-book. Hyde himself cannot be found, so the hunt passes to the police. Utterson now has clear reason to fear for his friend. What began as a strange story has become a criminal case.

Chapter 5: Incident of the Letter

Jekyll gives Utterson a letter written by Hyde. In it, Hyde says he has means of escape he can rely on, and Jekyll asks Utterson to decide what to do with it. Utterson shows the note to his head clerk, Mr Guest, who compares it with a dinner invitation written by Jekyll. Guest notices a striking resemblance: the two hands are alike in many points, though they slope differently. Utterson tells Guest to say nothing, and that night he locks the note in his safe. The chapter is short, but it tightens the mystery. The handwriting clue hints at a link between Jekyll and Hyde that Utterson is not yet ready to name.

Chapter 6: Remarkable Incident of Dr Lanyon

Jekyll shuts himself away and rarely sees his old friends, Utterson included. Dr Hastie Lanyon, another old friend and a respected physician, is struck by a shock he never recovers from. He grows ill and dies within weeks. Before his death he leaves Utterson a sealed envelope, with instructions that it must not be opened until Jekyll dies or disappears. Utterson keeps the envelope and honours the request, even though it leaves him waiting. Lanyon's death makes the mystery personal and serious, and the sealed envelope sets up the written accounts that carry the story from here on.

Chapter 7: Incident at the Window

Utterson and Enfield take another walk and pass the courtyard beside Jekyll's house. Looking up, they see Jekyll sitting at a window, pale, terrified and despairing, like a man shut in. He does not come down to them, and the two men walk on, shaken. Neither can forget the look on his face. The scene is short but powerful, because a respected gentleman appears trapped in full view of his friends. For Utterson, it is a sign that something is badly wrong, even if he still cannot say what it is. The image pushes the story towards its final revelations.

Chapter 8: The Last Night

Poole, Jekyll's butler, arrives at Utterson's home in a state of fear. He says the voice he has been hearing from the laboratory is not his master's, and he believes something terrible has happened. Utterson and Poole go to the laboratory and force the door. Inside, they find a dead man, wearing clothes far too large for him, who has taken poison. It is Edward Hyde. Jekyll is nowhere to be found, but papers left in the room in the doctor's hand begin to explain what has happened. The chapter is grim and quiet, and it moves the story into its final pages.

Chapter 9: Dr Lanyon's Narrative

This chapter is Dr Lanyon's own account, written before his death and meant to be read only afterwards. He describes a letter from Jekyll, asking him to fetch a drawer of chemicals from the laboratory and to receive a visitor late at night. Lanyon does as he is asked, though the request puzzles him. The visitor mixes the chemicals, drinks the mixture in one gulp, and changes before Lanyon's eyes into Henry Jekyll. Lanyon never recovers from what he has seen. Here the long mystery of Hyde finally gets its answer: Hyde and Jekyll are one man.

Chapter 10: Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case

The final chapter is Jekyll's own long statement. He begins with his birth into a large fortune and his talents, then describes his fascination with the divided nature of people, the good and the evil that sit side by side within each of us. He tells how a potion let him take on a separate form. That form, Hyde, grew stronger over time, and the changes came without warning and beyond his control. Jekyll writes that this is his true hour of death, and that he is bringing the life of Henry Jekyll to an end. The chapter is the tragic core of the book, and it asks whether anyone can truly separate their darker self from the rest of their life.

Characters

• Mr Utterson: A reserved lawyer and loyal friend of Dr Jekyll. He is careful with his words and rarely shows strong feeling, yet he refuses to abandon his friend, even when he suspects that something is badly wrong. He is the reader's guide through the mystery.
• Dr Henry Jekyll: A respected London doctor and gentleman, admired by his friends and the wider city. His calm and orderly manner makes his later withdrawal all the more troubling to those who know him. He is the figure around whom the whole mystery turns, yet he speaks about it only in part, which keeps readers guessing.
• Edward Hyde: A small, unpleasant man at the heart of the mystery. People feel uneasy around him, and his hold over Dr Jekyll drives Utterson's investigation. Hyde's background is unclear, and the book keeps his true nature hidden for as long as it can.
• Richard Enfield: Utterson's cousin, who witnesses Hyde's cruelty in the opening chapter. He tells the story that starts the investigation, then agrees with Utterson to keep it private. He is a sensible, observant man who notices the door on the dark street and remembers it, which later gives Utterson a place to start looking.
• Dr Hastie Lanyon: A respected physician and old friend of both Jekyll and Utterson. He is a rational man of medicine, and he is badly shaken by a strange request and by what he sees on one night. He leaves a sealed account behind, which becomes one of the book's key documents.
• Poole: Jekyll's loyal butler, who grows increasingly worried about his master. He notices the strange voice from the laboratory and believes it does not belong to his master. In the later chapters he raises the alarm and leads Utterson to the laboratory, where his fear becomes a call to action.

Writing about this book

If you are writing a school essay on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, choose one question and follow it through the text. You do not need to cover the whole novella. Three directions often work well:

• Reputation: how does Utterson's concern for his friend's good name shape what he does, and what does he avoid asking?
• Documents: why does Stevenson tell the story through several written accounts? What changes about how much you trust each narrator?
• Setting: how does the foggy London street help build the sense of threat?

Before you write, reread the first and last chapters and note how the tone changes. A strong essay usually takes a clear position, such as whether Utterson is a good friend or a passive one, and then tests that position against the evidence. Build your own argument, support it with a short quotation, and check chapter numbers in your edition, because page numbers differ between editions.