Mary Reilly is a maid in the house of Dr. Henry Jekyll. Through her eyes, we witness the mysterious actions of Jekyll and his evil “assistant,” Mr. Edward Hyde. Even if you have not read Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you are likely familiar with the basic story: the benevolent Dr. Jekyll has found a drug that allows him to transform into his evil twin, Mr. Hyde, in order to allow his baser instincts to play out.

Mary does not know that Jekyll and Hyde are one and the same. She idolizes her employer, who takes an interest in her life story: as a child, she was severely abused by her alcoholic father.

Much of Mary’s life revolves around the details of housekeeping, and we become intimately familiar with what it takes to keep an upper-class Victorian household running smoothly: making fires, scrubbing floors, beating carpets, serving meals. Mary is compelled to take part in Jekyll’s scheme when he tasks her with carrying secret notes to Mrs. Farraday, keeper of a brothel, who for a fee will rent a room to Mr. Hyde. Mary is bewildered by her employer’s actions, as well as by the diabolical appearance of Mr. Hyde in the middle of the night. She experiences a visceral revulsion to Hyde, who reminds her of her own evil father.

The novel is told in the form of a diary that Mary keeps. Unusual for a maid at that time, she is literate. An “afterword” purports to be the account of how the diaries were found and prepared for publication.

I found the novel to be gripping as I wondered whether Mary would figure out what was really going on. I also found it fascinating to learn about Victorian England from the perspective of a working-class woman. Mary Reilly, first published in 1990, was made into a movie in 1996 starring Julia Roberts.