SOURCE: Miyoshi, Masao. “Masks in the Mirror: The Eighteen-Nineties.” In The Divided Self: A Perspective on The Literature of the Victorians, pp. 294–96. New York: New York University Press, 1969.

In the following excerpt, Miyoshi views the notion of duality in “Markheim” as the embodiment of Markheim's conscience.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) was by no means the first product of Stevenson's fascination with the dual personality. From childhood he had been familiar with the legend of Deacon Brodie, daylight cabinetmaker and moonlight burglar, and a full twenty years before Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde he was already working on a play based on Brodie's life.¹ In 1883 he wrote a wretched and revolting story (“The Travelling Companion”), which was turned down by his publisher and which he himself soon decided to destroy. He called it a “carrion tale,” and later explained why he had written it: “I had long been...