Welcome to today’s episode and another “Best of” remix on The Literary Life Podcast! Today our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks explore Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. After their commonplace quote discussion, each cohost shares some personal thoughts on Robert Louis Stevenson. Be aware that this episode will contain some spoilers, though we will not spoil the full ending. Thomas shares some biographical information about R. L. Stevenson. Angelina points out the mythic quality of this story and the enduring cultural references inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She and Thomas also discuss some of the differences between early and late Victorian writers. They also begin digging into the first section of the book.

Join us again next week for the second part of this discussion. Check out our Upcoming Events page for if want to know what we will be reading and talking about on the podcast next!

Don’t forget to check out our sister podcast, The Well Read Poem, as well as Cindy’s new podcast, The New Mason Jar!

Commonplace Quotes:

I would rather (said he) have the rod to be the general terrour to all, to make them learn, than tell a child, if you do thus, or thus, you will be more esteemed than your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there’s an end on’t; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make brothers and sisters hate each other.

Samuel Johnson, as quoted by James Boswell

Do not talk about Shakespeare’s mistakes: they are probably your own.

G. M. Young

The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn… They disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as we see it for ourselves, but with a singular change–that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the nonce, struck out.

Robert Louis Stevenson

R L S

by A. E. Houseman

Home is the sailor, home from sea:
Her far-borne canvas furled
The ship pours shining on the quay
The plunder of the world.

Home is the hunter from the hill:
Fast in the boundless snare
All flesh lies taken at his will
And every fowl of air.

‘Tis evening on the moorland free,
The starlit wave is still:
Home is the sailor from the sea,
The hunter from the hill.

Book List:

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

Daylight and Champaign by G. M. Young

“Books Which Have Influenced Me” by Robert Louis Stevenson

David Balfour by Robert Louis Stevenson

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Ryder Haggard

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel

Robert Louis Stevenson by G. K. Chesterton

God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Body-Snatcher and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

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You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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