The picture of Dorian Gray : an annotated, uncensored edition /
Oscar Wilde ; edited by Nicholas Frankel.
- Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.
- 295 p. : ill. (some col.), col. map ; 25 cm.
This book altered the way Victorians understood the world they inhabited. It heralded the end of a repressive Victorianism, and after its publication, literature had 'a different look,' Yet the version that Victorians never knew was even more daring than the novel the British press condemned as vulgar, unclean, and poisonous. The novel's first editor, J.M. Stoddart, excised material, especially homosexual content, he thought would offend his readers' sensibilities. When Wilde enlarged the novel for the 1891 edition, he responded to his critics by further toning down its 'immoral' elements. The differences between the text Wilde submitted to Lippincott and published versions of the novel have until now been evident to only a handful of scholars who have examined Wilde's typescript. Now, more than 120 years after Wilde handed it over to his publisher, J.B. Lippincott & Company, Wilde's uncensored typescript is published for the first time, in an annotated, extensively illustrated edition.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-287)
General introduction -- Textual introduction -- The picture of Dorian Gray -- Textual notes -- Appendix A: Accidental changes introduced into the text by J.M. Stoddart or his associates -- Appendix B: The 1891 preface to The picture of Dorian Gray -- Note on Wilde editions.