SOURCE: "Dr. Jekyll's Housekeeper," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 21, 1990, pp. 1, 10.

In the following laudatory review, Freeman compares Mary Reilly to Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), asserting that Martin's novel should be read as a "companion piece" to the latter.

A "fine bogy tale," frightening and vivid, was once dreamed by a husband who, crying out in his sleep, was awakened by his startled wife. Instead of feeling relieved at escaping the nightmare, he felt irritated that she had interrupted such an exciting story. Nevertheless, the dream survived, was eventually embellished by the dreamer (who also was a writer) and turned into a work of fiction.

The husband was Robert Louis Stevenson; the tale became Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a classic story with the power of myth whose very title has become synonymous with the concept of man's duality and those who lead...