Both Frankenstein (by Mary W. Shelley) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (by noted children’s author Robert Louis Stevenson) are utterly gripping novels that a reader can barely put down. Each explores the evil caused by human pride and self-absorption. These horrific novels are a natural reaction to Romanticism’s hope that divorcing a man (or woman) from Christianity and traditional modes of behavior would leave the individual not only “free” but godlike. Both writers swiftly see the reality beneath that naïve optimism; perhaps Mary Shelley’s book is the deeper and more bitter disappointment (since her famous husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, was one of the most famous of the second-generation Romantics who were making a ghastly pretense of superior virtue). Mr. Stevenson’s novel later grows out a sense of the longer-term effects of the Romantic movement. Both books are a great antidote to false promises of progress. Enjoy analysis of the two books with a deeper look at the story and message.