Robert Louis Stevenson published The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1886. He’d already released Kidnapped! and Treasure Island to great acclaim. Jekyll and Hyde is an adventure of a different sort, as Dr. Jekyll transforms himself from civil to savage.
This recording was made in 1906, with Len Spencer playing the role of Dr. Jekyll…and, of course, Mr. Hyde.
The Jekyll and Hyde we all know and love is actually Stevenson’s second version. What grisly fate befell the first? Well, you know the thoroughly un-p.c. aphorism “Behind every man is a good woman?” Stevenson might have begged to differ.