The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Why it’s on the list: A London lawyer investigates why his respectable friend Dr. Jekyll has left everything to the brutal Edward Hyde — told as a detective story, so the reader arrives at the transformation as a discovery. The compact version of the question Frankenstein asks at book length: what a man does with a power that lets him act without being himself.

Where I heard about it

• Founders Classical Academy — on the seventh-grade list at the Lewisville, Texas school, a year before it assigns Frankenstein. Posted by the Classic Learning Test in September 2026; full sequence on Founders Classical Academy Reading List.

Connections

• Founders Classical Academy Reading List — the curriculum this came from; 56 unique titles across 5th through 12th grade.
• Classical Education — the movement whose canon this list is.
• Robert Louis Stevenson
• Frankenstein
• Literature