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Summary:
The book begins with two men, Mr. Utterson and his cousin Mr. Richard
Enfield, on a walk in London. Although the two men are initially silent,
after passing a mysterious door , Mr. Enfield tells the lawyer, Mr Utterson,
a strange occurrence that centred around the door. Late one night, while he
was on his way home, he chanced to see an act of violence, a short man who
walked on a girl who was on her way to get a doctor. The girl\'s family and
Mr. Enfield catch the mysterious man and instead of getting the police, they
decide to blackmail him and force him to give the girl\'s family money.
Agreeing to this, the mysterious man disappears into the same door and comes
out with a cheque bearing not his own signature , but that of the
respectable, honoured and very well known man, Dr. Jekyll.
After hearing the story, Utterson returns to his home where he takes out Dr.
Jekyll\'s mysterious will, which he recently filed away in a safe in his
business room. Jekyll\'s will stated that in case of his death, everything he
owned will pass to Mr. Hyde, but even stranger, in case of his disappearance
for more than three months, Hyde will assume Jekyll\'s life without delay.
Utterson decides that Jekyll is being blackmailed by Hyde. So he searches
after him to see his face in order to understand why. After seeing him he is
sure that this evil man is the same as in the story which his cousin Enfield
has told him.
One year later, Hyde murders Sir Danvers Carew with a cane. With help from
Utterson, the police find Hyde\'s apartment. At his flat they find the weapon
with which Mr Carew was murdered. After leaving, Utterson confronts Jekyll
with the murderer. Jekyll claims that he is done with Hyde and promises that
he has nothing left to do with him. He does, however, have a farewell note
from Hyde. Utterson takes the note home and his clerk, Mr. Guest, later
discovers that the handwriting from the note matches a dinner invitation
written by Dr. Jekyll. Angrily, Utterson assumes that Jekyll has written a
false letter for a murderer.
More time passes, and we learn that although Hyde has not been located, Dr.
Jekyll becomes more and more social until one day Utterson attends a dinner
party at Jekyll\'s where Lanyon is present. Shortly thereafter Jekyll locks
himself in his workroom and Dr. Lanyon fell ill and died. After his death,
Dr. Lanyon left Mr Utterson a letter that instructed him not to read it until
H. Jekyll dies or disappears . After these mysterious events, Enfield and
Utterson again walk by the mysterious door.
About a week later, Poole, Henry Jekyll\'s butler, visits Utterson. He is
afraid because his master Dr Jekyll has locked himself up in a room above the
workroom and the only things to be heard were strange sounds, including
crying. The only communication that has come are letters urgently asking for
a special type of white powder. Utterson follows Poole to Jekyll\'s house and
breaks down the door with an axe to enter the dark room where the body of
Hyde is found. In the laboratory, the two discover a large envelope addressed
to Mr. Utterson. Inside, Jekyll urges Utterson to read the letter from Lanyon
and if he wished to know more, to read the further description that Jekyll
has put within the envelope.
Lanyon\'s paper begins by describing a strange letter he received from Henry
Jekyll, the night after a dinner party at Jekyll\'s residence. The letter
urges Lanyon to go to Jekyll\'s house and get a drawer full of chemicals out
of the laboratory. Afterwards, a strange caller will come to Lanyon\'s house
in Jekyll\'s name and will ask for all these things he took from Jekyll's
room. Lanyon does as much, thinking that Jekyll is crazy, and Mr. Hyde
appears at the subscribed time. He gives Hyde the chemicals; Hyde mixes them
into a potion, and after drinking it transforms into Dr. Jekyll. This shock,
the pure evilness of the situation, was the reason why Lanyon dies soon.
After reading the confession of Dr. Lanyon, Utterson then reads Jekyll\'s own
confession of his failed experiment. Jekyll believed that he had lived two
separate lives : The evil and the good. These two beings had always been in
conflict with each other. So slowly, Jekyll begins an experiment where he
makes two potions and transforms himself into Edward Hyde. Shortly after
becoming Hyde, he drinks a second potion and once again becomes Henry Jekyll.
He decided to use his discovery.
For some months, this behaviour continued until one moment, \"I had gone to
bed as Henry Jekyll, I had awakened as Edward Hyde.\" Afraid that the
character of Hyde might irrevocably stay, Jekyll gives up drinking the
mixture to become Hyde any longer. But then once again he took the potion and
brutally murdered Carew. Because Hyde was becoming too evil, he decided not
to bring him back.
This, however, failed because Hyde was an irrevocable part of Jekyll\'s
character. One night, while contemplating the deeds of Hyde, Jekyll was once
again transformed into Edward Hyde. Realising that he could not return to his
house, he sent the letter to Dr. Lanyon and Mr. Poole and went immediately to
a hotel. He went home once again but every time he would fall asleep, he
would revert to Mr. Hyde. In the end, Hyde kills himself, by taking some
poison, and therefore lets both Jekyll and Hyde free.
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