The Jekyll Legacy

~ A Novel by Robert Bloch and Andre Norton

jekyll.legacy

 

Synopsis ~

Write-up from the front flap of the 1990 dustjacket ~

Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde.
Recent years have seen a renewal of fascination with these dark figures—and a steady stream of re-telling of Stevenson’s original tale.
The Jekyll Legacy is not a recreation of that classic, but a brand-new sequel written by two master storytellers: Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, and Andre Norton, Life magazines grande dame of Science Fiction.
Hester Lane, recently arrived in Victorian London, eagerly accepts a potentially dangerous assignment for a fashionable ladies’ magazine. She is to report on the newly-formed Salvation Army, an organization attracting much attention—and much trouble—in London's slums.
When her article is rejected, the penniless Hester fears that she will soon need the help of the strong-willed women of the Army: Captain Ellison, whose composure remains intact in the midst of a street brawl; and Mrs. Kirby, a wealthy matron who trains former prostitutes as household servants.
Then a newspaper advertisement leads Hester to the offices of Mr. Utterson, solicitor to the missing-and-presumed-dead Henry Jekyll, where Hester is revealed to be the doctor's long-lost niece... and only heir.
Amazed at her good fortune, Hester is shocked to learn that her visit to Utterson's office has made her the prime suspect in Jekyll’s disappearance! Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard is convinced that she conspired with Hyde to murder Jekyll and has carried through their plans to claim the estate despite Hyde's apparent death.
Hester’s attempts to adjust to her new life of wealth and leisure are closely watched. Jekyll’s servants are suspicious; Inspector Newcomen follows her everywhere, waiting for a fatal error; even her friends from the Salvation Army seem distant.
In Dr. ]ekyll’s abandoned lab a light flickers briefly. A mysterious, misshapen figure glares at Hester from the shadows. Are its burning eyes those of Dr. Jekyll... or Mr. Hyde?

 

Write-up from the back of paperback edition ~

Mr. Hyde is dead – Or is he?

When Hester Lane arrives in England. She swiftly discovers her true identity as Hester Jekyll, niece of the respected Dr. Henry Jekyll. But the inheritance she thought she could claim easily proves to be elusive… the friends she thought she had made are suddenly untrustworthy and aloof… and she finds herself entangled in the frightening mystery of her uncle’s past. And as a series of brutal deaths begins and Hester is haunted by a dark, terrifying figure, she is forced to ask a new question:

Have we truly seen the last of Dr. Jekyll … or Mr. Hyde?

 

Write-ups from fans ~

Hester Lane comes to London seeking a livelihood, since her father has dies and selfishly left no provision for her and had her educated only to help him in his research.  Her one "legacy" from her father is a book of Greek poetry--printed in the native Greek, naturally--with a newspaper clipping hidden in it.  The clipping is an advertisement for the "discovery of one Leonard Jekyll, or his descendants."  Since she did not think her father would have saved it if not in some way relevant, she contacts the lawyer who inserted the ad, and discovers that she is the missing heiress to the Jekyll Estate.  While the investigation is going on, Hester seeks employment with a ladies' magazine publisher and contacts the early Salvation Army group; she also becomes involved with a woman purporting to train young orphan girls as housemaids--actually selling them into prostitution, though.  After she is proved to be the heiress, it begins to seem that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde aren't dead after all, since the same style of brutal murders have started up again. ~ SL

 

Robert Bloch, a longtime friend of the great lady, teams up with her to pen a sequel to R.L. Stevenson's classic tale of horror--"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". This is set in Victorian London
Hester Lane was born and reared in Canada. Her mother died when Hester was young. After her father died, she traveled to London as a chaperone to a young lady. When she was dismissed from her post, she started to work at a ladies' magazine. Her first assignment was a report on the newly formed Salvation Army, a dangerous subversive group meeting in the worst parts of London. After a hair-raising adventure, she writes her article and is told that it as garbage and that she was out of a job.
A personal ad leads her to the law offices of Mr. Utterson, solicitor to the missing and presumed dead Dr. Henry Jekyll. He finds documents showing that her real name is Jekyll and that she is heiress to the Jekyll fortune. But--also in the office is Inspector Newcomen who is obsessed with finding the missing Jekyll and now considers Hester to be the prime suspect. As she tries to settle down into her new life, the suspicious inspector, her nervous servants and mysterious break-ins of Dr. Jekyll's Laboratory and sudden brutal deaths of two people connected to Jekyll have her nerves on edge. Then, on top of all that, Mr. Hyde's corpse is missing from his grave. Just before his murder, Utterson told Hester that Jekyll and Hyde were the same person, something that he never told Inspector Newcomen. ~ PG

 

Reviews ~

Kirkus Reviews ~ Issue: 1990
Mock-Victorian sequel to the Stevenson classic, by the author of Psycho and veteran fantasy writer Norton. Echoing Jane Eyre, Dickens and even Anonymous' erotic classic My Secret Life, the Bloch/Norton team has a fine time indulging in London dialects and lowlife scenery following the suicide of Edward Hyde and disappearance of Dr. Jekyll. In Canada, prim Hester Lane, now an orphan but with her first sales established with The British Lady magazine in London, leaves Canada for England. The British Lady decides to hire her to investigate the newly formed Salvation Army--whose activities with the underclass, drunkards, prostitutes and waifs has England in an uproar and which gives Bloch/Norton a shot at street-life at its grimmest. Hester is approached by an inspector following up on the disappearance of Jekyll; he thinks she may have murdered him, for Jekyll's lawyer has revealed that Hester is Jekyll's niece and stands to inherit 50,000 pounds--which is all news to Hester. Meanwhile, white slavers have been operating through the Salvation Army at procuring young girls to satisfy the needs of salacious gentlemen of means. Who is operating this ring? None other than a Mrs. Kirby, who has come under the influence of Jekyll's potion for isolating the criminal element in man. As a ""good"" woman, she drank the potion by mistake, then found herself changing into a Hyde-like criminal. When Hester moves into Jekyll's abandoned mansion, she also falls prey to Mrs. Kirby, who wants her to sign over the mansion and inheritance to herself--lest death come to the young virgins she has kidnapped. The novel's virtues come largely in looking at Victorian morals and the works of the Salvation Army, with the horror lightly handled.

 

Review by Publishers Weekly ~ Aug. 29, 1990

Giving Dr. Jekyll a niece to inherit his estate and dread secret, veteran storytellers Bloch (Lori) and Norton (Dare to Go A-Hunting) build a tale about the horrors inflicted on Victorian London's poor and helpless. Orphaned and nearly penniless, Hester Lane comes from Canada to London and applies for a job on the British Lady, a mildly radical publication that combines society chitchat with social commentary. Over the objections of the editor's nephew, rising young politician Albert Prothore, Hester is assigned to cover the despised Salvation Army but writes instead about Gertrude Kirby, who takes in abused and abandoned children from the noisome city streets. Her article rejected, on the verge of despair, she is summoned to an attorney's office, where long-lost documents disclose her relationship to the infamous doctor. She goes to live in Jekyll's house, taking with her two of Mrs. Kirby's waifs. But strange and unpleasant events follow, including murder, and Hester and Albert join forces to solve the crimes. While lacking the power of the Robert Louis Stevenson work, this lively historical romance cum mystery provides a realistic view into the dichotomies of Victorian England.

 

Various reviews ~ For more info and other listings see Articles Over the Years

1990 by Scott Winnett in Locus #357, October
1991 by Baird Searles in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, March
2022 by Judith Tarr

 

Dedications and Acknowledgements ~

For Ingrid with gratitude and admiration.

 

Bibliography of English Editions ~

  • (1990) Published by TOR, HC, 0-312-85037-9, LCCN 90039228, $17.95, 248pg ~ cover Photo by Doug Fornuff {Brown Paper Boards}
  • (1991) Published by TOR, PB, 0-812-51583-8, $4.99, 248pg ~ cover Photo by Doug Fornuff
  • (2017) Published by Worldbuilders Press, DM, no ISBN, $3.99, 312pg ~ cover by Matt Forsyth
  • (2018) Published by Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency, PB, 1-680-68018-8, $10.49, 236pg ~ cover by Matt Forsyth

 

Non-English Editions ~

  • (1992) Published in Paris, France; by Éd. J'ai lu, PB, 22-772-3329-3, 313pg ~ translated by Xavier Perret ~ French title L'héritage du Dr Jekyll [The legacy of Dr. Jekyll]
  • (1993) Published in Germany; by Bergisch Gladbach: Bastei-Verl. Lübbe, 34-041-3454-0, Bastei Lübbe 13454, 218pg ~ translated by Reinhard Wagner ~ German title Dr. Jekylls erbe: ein historischer Schocker [Dr. Jekyll's legacy: a historic shocker]

 

Russian Omnibus Editions ~

  • (2017) Published in Russia, by Litera-T, no ISBN, HC, 340pg ~ Russian title Наследие Джекила [Jekyll's Legacy] ~ Limited to 40 copies

Contains:

    • "The Jekyll Legacy" as "Jekyll's Legacy" ~ translation by A. Golikova, pp. 7-286
    • "The Real Bad Friend" by Robert Bloch as "A true friend" ~ translation by S. Manukov, pp. 287-319
    • "Water's Edge" by Robert Bloch as "Rats" ~ translation by E. Andreev, pp. 320-338

View the Original contract

View the original Copyright app.

View the original French & German contract

For information on editions currently available visit the Book Store

During a panel discussion at the first World Horror Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1991 Robert Bloch was asked about his collaberation with Andre on The Jekyll Legacy and this was his answer.

(An audience member asks about Bob’s collaboration with Andre Norton on The Jekyll Legacy [1990].)

BOB: How did my collaboration with Andre Norton come about? I was at a convention, minding my own business, and I met this very nice lady who told me she was doing an anthology of stories based on her Witch World theme—about which world, I knew nothing; I hadn’t tackled anything of that sort. I said yes to see if I could do it. I asked her to show me something, so she sent a copy of the story she was doing for this anthology. I said, “Tell you what I’ll do—I’ll take your story and rewrite it.” She’d told it from the standpoint of the heroine. I told the same story from the standpoint of her villainess.

Subsequently we met at another convention in Florida, where she said, “You know, it might be fun if we collaborated on a book.” I stopped and thought about that, and said I’d see if I could come up with something that might interest both of us. After I went home, I thought of what I had read of Andre’s work up to that point, that certainly she wasn’t writing my kind of thing and I wasn’t writing her kind of thing, but she was very much into Victoriana, and had done a tremendous amount of research for her own interest and pleasure. So I thought, it’s got to be a Victorian background.

Then there was the “style” thing. I had this wonderful, polished, eloquent style, and she had this…sloppy…(laughter)

I thought, what about Robert Louis Stevenson and Jekyll and Hyde? If we were to do a Victorian piece, she would do all the research, Stevenson would supply the style, and all I would have to do, y’know, would be a little polishing and tinkering. So I sent her the outline of a sequel to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

She said, “fine,” and the publisher, in a weak moment, said “fine.” I would write one chapter and send it to her; she would make any changes and corrections she deemed necessary, write the next chapter, and send it to me and I would do likewise. Sometimes we slopped over into each other’s chapters, but it worked out very, very, easily. And I can tell you that my admiration for that lady continued to grow, because she is a fine talent, and a wonderful researcher.

For example, I decided that it might be interesting to use the early history of the Salvation Army, because I remembered they were just getting started in those days, in England. I wrote to Andre and asked if she happened to have anything on the background of the Salvation Army during that period. She sent me a six-volume history of the Salvation Army. And a tambourine. That’s the kind of a thorough, conscientious, painstaking researcher Andre is, and I don’t have to tell you what a fine writer she is. So I lucked out. I think that sometime in the future we might do another collaboration.

 

The Short Story mentioned for the anthology is Heir Apparent – in – Tales of the Witch World 1

 

To see the whole interview go here.

View the embedded image gallery online at:
https://www.andre-norton.com/works-of-a-master/long-works-of-a-master/419-the-jekyll-legacy#sigProIda6b14d2efe

 

 

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