Both of these books were part of my most recent haul of Dover Thrift Editions, and neither one is very long.
The Island of Dr. Moreau has been adapted into a movie three times. The only one I had seen was the 1996, Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer version. Needless to say, the book was much better. As far as H.G. Wells works, I had only read War of the Worlds previously and this one did not disappoint. Wells uses a well woven together adventure tale to explore the ethics of bio-engineering. You have to constantly remind yourself that this book was first published in 1896. In War of the Worlds, Wells essentially invents all of our notions of invading aliens. However; in Island of Dr. Moreau, he anticipates scientific issues that will not truly become reality for decades. And one of the ending themes, ultimately the return of the beast instincts of the animal folk, is a statement of man's ultimate inability to "cheat" nature. This is an idea that we are only now starting to accept, over 120 years later.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde piqued my interest because in some biographical article I read about Stephen King, it mentioned that he taught a class at one time focusing on the three novels that made up the "canon of horror", which were Stoker's Dracula, Shelley's Frankenstein, and Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I am a big fan of the first two books, so I knew that I needed to check out Dr. Jekyll. I knew very little of the story previously. I will have to admit, as far as horror books go, there is not much to fear from Mr Hyde. There is not much of a body count, mostly he just darts around and looks "odd". The suspense rests mainly in the slow discovery of his identity by Dr. Jekyll's friend, Mr. Utterson. But I do appreciate the theme behind it all. Dr. Jekyll believed that there was essentially two separate sides to our souls, a good and an evil. He was ultimately trying to bring out the good only, but ended up becoming Mr. Hyde, which slowly took him over completely. This book doesn't have the blockbuster action of Dracula or the dark introspection of Frankenstein, but at 54 pages, it is definitely worth reading. At least I can say that I have now completed Stephen King's "canon of horror".
