Stanford’s “Another Look” book season continues with Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The discussion will take place at 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 12, at the Bechtel Conference Center in Encina Hall (see here for directions).

Stevenson’s short 1885 novel is universally known but little read today – an important reason why it needs “another look.” Vladimir Nabokov called it “a fable that lies nearer to poetry than to ordinary prose fiction.” The Russian author compared it to Flaubert’s Madame Bovary or Gogol’s Dead Souls. 

Stevenson’s dark vision had come to him in a dream – as it had for Mary Shelley, who went on to write Frankenstein, a book that Another Look featured in 2018. Both works share a fascination with the limits of science, medicine, and technology on our humanity.  

Acclaimed author Robert Pogue Harrison will moderate the discussion. The Stanford professor who is Another Look’s director writes regularly for The New York Review of Books and hosts the popular talk show, Entitled Opinions. He will be joined by eminent novelist Tobias Wolff, founding director of Another Look and a National Medal of Arts winner, and Ana Ilievska, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Stanford Humanities Center and a lecturer in Stanford’s Department of French and Italian. 

The event marks our first in-person event since the beginning of COVID in 2020. The occasion will also be offered virtually for those who cannot attend on the Stanford campus. Stay tuned for details. (Currently, face masks are recommended, but not required, for attendance; the situation is in flux and we will keep you updated as the situation changes.) 

The short book is available in many editions, and is available online. As always, this event is free and open to the public.

REGISTER HERE TO ATTEND: https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6ksF25fuT9e7labfK3dMAQ

Another Look is sponsored by the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, Continuing Studies, and the Stanford Humanities Center.