With Halloween fast approaching I wanted to read and review a novel in the horror genre and what better choice than The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (published 1886), a classic not only in terms of horror literature but world literature in general.
And yet a funny thing happened on my way to posting my review. I lost not only what I think was a pretty good analysis of this classic work (if I do say so myself) but I must have hit something I shouldn't have on the keyboard and lost all of my prior reviews here at Reading Matters as well. But its not a catastrophe because knowing I am not computer savy I made sure each time I posted a review going back to 2015 to write it out in long hand. So I have about 30 of my 41 prior reviews saved in a notebook. I thought about typing them onto this blog again but I figured why not start fresh.
So I am starting over and actually its ironic because in doing research for the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde I learned that Robert Louis Stevenson's wife burned the first draft and he had to write this classic work all over from scratch. I was thinking of doing that with my review of Jekyll and Hyde but its not easy to recreate what you wrote. So suffice it to say I highly recommend The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a novel about a man named Henry Jekyll who could not accept the duality of his nature, the light and dark that exist in all of us, and instead concocted a magic potion to separate the good from the evil within him with disasterous results. I promise future reviews will be much more detailed.
Let me close by assuring my readers that I am fine. I saved my reviews in a notebook and going forward I may retype them onto this blog under the heading Blast From The Past. One thing I know is I plan on reading and reviewing books here at Reading Matters for a long long time. And I want to thank everyone who has been so nice to read what I have to say and your thoughtful comments. You have given me the encouragement to continue.
Oh, gosh, what an awful thing to have happen. I would be distraught if I lost my posts as I don't have any other record of them.
ReplyDeleteI read Jekyll and Hyde a couple of years ago and had mixed feelings--the premise was great, but I think Stevenson stretched it out too much. Glad I read it, though, as it is definitely a classic.
Thanks Jane, Its a lesson I wanted to share with other bloggers. See if somehow you can back up what you post either by copying what you wrote on paper as I did or seeing if a tech person can help you save a copy. I love your blog, particularly what you have written about Elizabeth Gaskell.
DeleteRegarding Jekyll and Hyde 3/4 of the way through the novel I was wondering what all the fuss was about. But its that last chaptér, the long letter in which Dr. Jekyll tells his tragic story that really sold the book for me.
Aren't computers fun? I hate when stuff like that happens because I never know how to fix it. I'm sorry it happened to you. But at least your blog is still here! :D And The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of my favorite stories! I love the Broadway musical they did of it, too. Have you ever listened to that soundtrack? It's pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lark, computers definitely have their pluses and minuses. I have never listened to tne soundtrack of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde I might look for it though. I am so glad I read this book and stayed for the last chapter which is memorable.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about what happened.
ReplyDeleteI checked The Way Back Machine. Just a few of your old posts are saved there.
Go to - https://web.archive.org
Paste the home page of your blog into the search bar. After you search One date comes up on the calendar. Click on the date and a few of your old posts come up.
Google Cache has a few more of your posts. http://cachedview.com - Just paste your homepage into the search bar. Try it a few times using the different buttons as well as just hitting enter after pasting in your page. The different buttons and methods seem to pull up different posts.
I do not know if it will would for you, but I think that the latest OCR software will read written notes and save them into Word. You can search around the Internet for it. Some of the programs are free.
Good luck.
Thank you so much Brian. I followed your instructions and got my recent reviews back. The very reviews I had not yet copied into my notebook. So now I pretty much have a copy of everything I have written since 2015!
DeleteThanks Brian for checking this out for me. I am gling to check out the instructions you posted and see if it works for me. The one thing I am happy about is that I wrote out 30 of my 41 reviews by hand and have them all in a notebook. I could retype them by hand but your way sounds better. Its a lesson though to bloggers. You have a wonderful blog and my guess you have backed up what you write which is essential.
ReplyDelete