The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: plot summary, themes and quiz for GCSE English Literature

A respected London doctor is linked to a violent, repellent stranger, and his lawyer friend tries to work out why. Stevenson tells the story as a detective mystery and only reveals the truth in the last two documents. The novella explores the hidden side of Victorian respectability.

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The set text at a glance

Author
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
Date
1886
Form
Novella, Gothic mystery
Exam component
The 19th-century novel
Set by
AQA (8702), Pearson Edexcel (1ET0), OCR (J352)
How it is examined
AQA Paper 1 Section B, Edexcel Paper 2 Section A and OCR Component 01 Section B: the question starts from an extract and widens to the whole novel, in a closed-book exam.
Copyright
Public domain: Stevenson died in 1894.

Plot summary, part by part

Chapters 1-3: Hyde appears

On a Sunday walk, Enfield tells the lawyer Utterson how a man named Hyde trampled a young girl and paid compensation with a cheque signed by a respectable name. Utterson is troubled because Dr Jekyll’s will leaves everything to Hyde. He waits for Hyde, meets him, and finds him deeply repulsive; Jekyll asks him not to interfere.

Chapters 4-5: The Carew murder

A year later a maid witnesses Hyde beating Sir Danvers Carew, a member of Parliament, to death with a cane. Hyde vanishes. Jekyll shows Utterson a letter, supposedly from Hyde, and the clerk Guest notices that its handwriting resembles Jekyll’s own.

Chapters 6-8: Lanyon, the window, the last night

Jekyll seems to recover and returns to society, then shuts himself away. Dr Lanyon dies after a shock he will not explain, leaving Utterson a sealed letter. Enfield and Utterson glimpse Jekyll at his window, struck by sudden terror. Finally the butler Poole fetches Utterson; they break into the cabinet and find Hyde dead, apparently by suicide, and no sign of Jekyll.

Chapters 9-10: The two narratives

Lanyon’s letter describes watching Hyde drink a potion and turn into Jekyll before his eyes. Jekyll’s full statement explains how he created a drug to separate his two natures, enjoyed the freedom Hyde gave him, then began to change into Hyde without the drug, until his supply ran out and he could no longer return.

This summary is a map, not a substitute: exam questions and Vread checkpoints are about the detail of the text.

Key themes

  • Duality: every person contains good and evil; Jekyll’s experiment makes the split visible.
  • Respectability and reputation: the gentlemen of the novella prefer silence to scandal, and secrecy lets Hyde thrive.
  • Science and the supernatural: Jekyll’s chemistry crosses limits that Lanyon’s conventional science refuses to accept.
  • Violence and the city: foggy, maze-like London hides crime behind respectable doors.
  • Repression: what Victorian society forbids does not disappear; it grows stronger out of sight.

Key characters

  • Dr Henry Jekyll: a wealthy, well-regarded doctor who hides his darker desires and creates Hyde to indulge them.
  • Mr Edward Hyde: Jekyll’s other self: small, younger, violent, and described by everyone who meets him as deeply wrong in some way they cannot name.
  • Gabriel Utterson: a reserved, loyal lawyer whose investigation gives the novella its detective structure.
  • Dr Hastie Lanyon: a former friend of Jekyll, a conventional scientist destroyed by what he witnesses.
  • Richard Enfield: Utterson’s cousin, who tells the opening story of the trampled girl.
  • Poole: Jekyll’s loyal butler, who senses something is wrong and asks Utterson for help.

Sample Vread questions on The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Here are 3 of the questions Vread asks while you read. No answers here: they are in the text.

  1. What is the name of the servant who opens the door to Mr. Utterson when he visits Dr. Jekyll?
  2. Which tool does Poole use to break down the door of Dr. Jekyll's cabinet?
  3. What does Mr. Hyde destroy among Dr. Jekyll's belongings, in addition to burning his letters?

On Vread, the text is split into 3 sections, each ending with one question. Sections follow the catalogue edition, so your page numbers may differ.

Book page on Vread (in French): page count, reading time and checkpoints

Prove you’ve read it

Parents: has your teenager actually read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?

Summaries and revision notes are everywhere and take minutes to skim. What a parent cannot easily tell is whether the book was read. GCSE English Literature is closed book, and questions start from an extract: knowing the whole text is what makes the difference.

  • One question per section. Each checkpoint asks about a specific detail of the section just read, not a general idea a summary would give away.
  • Visible progress. Your child sees which sections are validated and what is left, at their own pace.
  • No copy of the book. Vread does not supply the text: your child reads the school’s edition, on paper or on an e-reader.

A correct answer shows a section was read, not that it was analysed: it complements, never replaces, the work done in class.

Other 19th-century novel set texts

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