White’s Books is the brainchild of ex-Penguin designer David Pearson and in his new venture he set out to reaffirm traditional methods of book production. This is one of his Pocket Classics series and is absolutely wonderful value at £6.99 for a splendid little hardback book, beautiful to hold and to handle, and with great crisp text. Each book in the series has a pertinent short introduction by a modern author (this one by Ian Rankin), plus a reader’s guide. A true delight!

Published in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson drafted ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ over just a few days while confined to bed. It can’t be known whether this feat of writing drove him into a fever, or if his illness inspired the feverish plot. But this background helped to justify at the time the invention of Mr Hyde, the terrifying alter ego of a respectable man, whose depravity was so extreme that his worst criminal pleasures are tantalisingly omitted from a still violent story. At first shunned by booksellers, Jekyll and Hyde went on to be quoted as a moral allegory and enjoyed by an enormous public. It remains a frighteningly compelling crime thriller with an enduring vision of the dark side of the psyche with an unforgettable plot which puts it at the head of its genre.