Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray: A Reader's Edition - Softcover

Oscar Wilde; Nicholas Frankel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674066316 ISBN 13: 9780674066311

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2012

Synopsis

More than 120 years after Oscar Wilde submitted The Picture of Dorian Gray for publication in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, the uncensored version of his novel appears here for the first time in a paperback edition. This volume restores all of the material removed by the novel's first editor. Upon receipt of the typescript, Wilde's editor panicked at what he saw. Contained within its pages was material he feared readers would find "offensive"--especially instances of graphic homosexual content. He proceeded to go through the typescript with his pencil, cleaning it up until he made it "acceptable to the most fastidious taste." Wilde did not see these changes until his novel appeared in print. Wilde's editor's concern was well placed. Even in its redacted form, the novel caused public outcry. The British press condemned it as "vulgar," "unclean," "poisonous," "discreditable," and "a sham." When Wilde later enlarged the novel for publication in book form, he responded to his critics by further toning down its "immoral" elements. Wilde famously said that The Picture of Dorian Gray "contains much of me": Basil Hallward is "what I think I am," Lord Henry "what the world thinks me," and "Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps." Wilde's comment suggests a backward glance to a Greek or Dorian Age, but also a forward-looking view to a more permissive time than his own repressive Victorian era. By implication, Wilde would have preferred we read today the uncensored version of his novel.

About this title

Review:

A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife", Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."

As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."

Review:

"Oscar Wilde just got a little wilder." -- Marcia Kaye Toronto Star 15th July 2012

"The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray is the latest edition of Wilde's only novel, but it is also the first. Editor Nicholas Frankel has followed the manuscript Wilde submitted to Lippincott's magazine in early 1890. Frankel poured over the original typescript and about 3,000 handwritten words Wilde added to it, restoring subtle but important romance between the three lead characters... The effect is not radical...but it is noticeable, and the book is more satisfying for his efforts... Frankel's uncensored version is closest to what Wilde intended before editors and hostile critics intervened, and it is also the most pleasurable to read... The Picture of Dorian Gray is a haunting, beautiful and important novel. -- Michael Ruffles Bangkok Post 20120910 Now, for the first time, we can read the version that Wilde intended...Both the text and Nicholas Frankel's introduction make for fascinating reading. -- Sadie Stein, Paris Review, 27th June 2012

" The Picture of Dorian Gray is just as spine tingling, relevant, and original now as it was in 1891. From the compelling story to the musicality of the prose to the symbolism, The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray is a great read. " --Catherine Ramsdell, PopMatters, 8th October 2012

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0674066316
• ISBN 13: 9780674066311
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224