1alaudacorax
I started a post on 'Interesting Editions' and got sort of tangled up so I decided to move that post to a new thread ...
2alaudacorax
I have an interesting-looking edition and question. Well, and a grouse, I suppose.
First of all, this YouTube vid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBMjiNbPAJA, randomly turned up in my feed, concerned with the 'jhambo ink' editions of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I was attracted as much by the implication that this was the first fully uncensored edition as by the appearances (they are offering two editions), though he does not definitely say that—I have something of a kink about whether or not I have 'complete' editions ... umm ... I've probably rambled on about that repeatedly and at length, but there it is.
First of all, I was a bit dubious about how much the print is showing through the pages in that video. Then I saw the prices and took a sharp step backwards.
However, is it really the first uncensored version? Does it have stuff that is not in the currently in-print versions?
Damn! I've been randomly searching on this as I've been writing and I've just run past myself. I think I shall move this to its own thread—we don't seem to have a 'Dorian Grey' thread and it does seem to be widely recognised as a Gothic novel, whether or not a 'key' one—and then add a second post ... and now that should be a third post ...
First of all, this YouTube vid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBMjiNbPAJA, randomly turned up in my feed, concerned with the 'jhambo ink' editions of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I was attracted as much by the implication that this was the first fully uncensored edition as by the appearances (they are offering two editions), though he does not definitely say that—I have something of a kink about whether or not I have 'complete' editions ... umm ... I've probably rambled on about that repeatedly and at length, but there it is.
First of all, I was a bit dubious about how much the print is showing through the pages in that video. Then I saw the prices and took a sharp step backwards.
However, is it really the first uncensored version? Does it have stuff that is not in the currently in-print versions?
Damn! I've been randomly searching on this as I've been writing and I've just run past myself. I think I shall move this to its own thread—we don't seem to have a 'Dorian Grey' thread and it does seem to be widely recognised as a Gothic novel, whether or not a 'key' one—and then add a second post ... and now that should be a third post ...
3alaudacorax
Okay, as I was writing >2 alaudacorax: I was searching online and found A Textual History of The Picture of Dorian Gray on the Harvard University Press Blog (I might as well say that I found both the Wikipedia and Encylopedia Britannica entries rather poor on publication history—perhaps it's only me who obsesses about such things).
So, I found from that link that there was an uncensored version published by Harvard University Press in 2011 and, searching on Amazon, there appear to be a fistful based, presumably, on that. I also suspect 'jhambo ink' is basing on that edition—looking carefully at their webpage, they don't actually say that they themselves have added new material. If you are less tight-fisted than I am you might go for one of their two for the illustrations.
So, I found from that link that there was an uncensored version published by Harvard University Press in 2011 and, searching on Amazon, there appear to be a fistful based, presumably, on that. I also suspect 'jhambo ink' is basing on that edition—looking carefully at their webpage, they don't actually say that they themselves have added new material. If you are less tight-fisted than I am you might go for one of their two for the illustrations.
4alaudacorax
So, now I'm left not knowing if my (Chiltern Press) version, published well after 2011, is the uncensored version or not. I suspect not. Sigh ...
5alaudacorax
>4 alaudacorax:
I should have said, there, that I haven't actually read it. Yet another languishing on my vertiginous TBR pile. And now I'm going to be stressing over buying another edition!
Nice hardback? Cheap paperback? Even cheaper ebook? Regarding it as an important book, my instinct is to find a nice hardback. That's best part of forty quid and just before I found that YouTube vid I'd put three equally expensive books on my wish list. Oh well, leave it all for another day ...
I should have said, there, that I haven't actually read it. Yet another languishing on my vertiginous TBR pile. And now I'm going to be stressing over buying another edition!
Nice hardback? Cheap paperback? Even cheaper ebook? Regarding it as an important book, my instinct is to find a nice hardback. That's best part of forty quid and just before I found that YouTube vid I'd put three equally expensive books on my wish list. Oh well, leave it all for another day ...
6housefulofpaper
As far as I know you have three versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray to consider:
- The original 13-chapter version in the typescript delivered to Lippincott's by Wilde;
- The censored version that saw publication (about 500 words cut);
- The subsequent book version, expanded to 20 chapters but not restoring any of Lippincott's cuts (it was probably based on the magazine version as Lippincott kept the typescript!).
There's a sense that the book version represents Wilde's final version but it's a more cautious novel than the original version, and more cautious than even than the censored magazine version. There was some self-censorship going on there.
I've got the oversized hardback "annotated uncensored edition" of the original version. I can't remember what I paid for it new (the preprinted US price of $35 is cruelly misleading as the exchange rate was much more favourable back in 2011).
Looking on Abe Books there's now a "readers edition", which I suspect is a POD paperback. No doubt it will be missing some of the scholarly and visual material in the hardback. Nevertheless if may suit you. Mention of editor Nicholas Frankel should lead you to the right text among all the dodgy editions out there.
Your Chilterns Press edition is surely the 20-chapter book version? My edition of the book version's a Folio Society edition from 2009. The illustrations (Emma Chicester Clark) are too light for the story, in my opinion (as if Wilde can never leave the world of The Importance of Being Earnest).
- The original 13-chapter version in the typescript delivered to Lippincott's by Wilde;
- The censored version that saw publication (about 500 words cut);
- The subsequent book version, expanded to 20 chapters but not restoring any of Lippincott's cuts (it was probably based on the magazine version as Lippincott kept the typescript!).
There's a sense that the book version represents Wilde's final version but it's a more cautious novel than the original version, and more cautious than even than the censored magazine version. There was some self-censorship going on there.
I've got the oversized hardback "annotated uncensored edition" of the original version. I can't remember what I paid for it new (the preprinted US price of $35 is cruelly misleading as the exchange rate was much more favourable back in 2011).
Looking on Abe Books there's now a "readers edition", which I suspect is a POD paperback. No doubt it will be missing some of the scholarly and visual material in the hardback. Nevertheless if may suit you. Mention of editor Nicholas Frankel should lead you to the right text among all the dodgy editions out there.
Your Chilterns Press edition is surely the 20-chapter book version? My edition of the book version's a Folio Society edition from 2009. The illustrations (Emma Chicester Clark) are too light for the story, in my opinion (as if Wilde can never leave the world of The Importance of Being Earnest).
7alaudacorax
>6 housefulofpaper: - I've got the oversized hardback "annotated uncensored edition" of the original version.
So your 'annotated uncensored' (which is, in fact, the 'nice hardback' I referred to in >5 alaudacorax:) will not have Wilde's additions for the 'final' publication, but I should have them in my Chiltern version (which is, indeed, the 20-chapter version).
I was making assumptions without thoroughly checking my facts when I was writing whatever above and I think I was assuming that the 'annotated uncensored' would somehow combine the two. I'll just have to read both ...
... and that's reminded me that I still have one version of Frankenstein to read, if I remember correctly ...
So your 'annotated uncensored' (which is, in fact, the 'nice hardback' I referred to in >5 alaudacorax:) will not have Wilde's additions for the 'final' publication, but I should have them in my Chiltern version (which is, indeed, the 20-chapter version).
I was making assumptions without thoroughly checking my facts when I was writing whatever above and I think I was assuming that the 'annotated uncensored' would somehow combine the two. I'll just have to read both ...
... and that's reminded me that I still have one version of Frankenstein to read, if I remember correctly ...
8alaudacorax
>7 alaudacorax:
You see from the above how I've somehow, overnight and subconsciously, settled to the idea of paying out for that hardback. I know it's going to happen ...
You see from the above how I've somehow, overnight and subconsciously, settled to the idea of paying out for that hardback. I know it's going to happen ...
9benbrainard8
Um, sorry, but this just leads me to ask----why would they have censored The Picture of Dorian Gray?
10housefulofpaper
>9 benbrainard8:
From Nicholas Frankel's introduction: "When the novel appeared in Lippincott's" {so after the editorial changes} "it was immediately controversial. To be sure, appreciative and sensitive reviews appeared in Britain and America, but a significant segment of the British prress reacted with outright hostility, condemning the novel as "vulgar', "unclean", "poisonous", "discreditable", and "a sham"."..."Today we can easily recognise these references to unhealthiness, insanity, uncleanliness, and "medico-legal interest" as coded imputations of homosexuality. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that in the Victorian era, sexual preference was less clearly seen as an identity"..."men who participated in London's homosexual subculture"..."would have been viewed by the majority not as homosexuals per se but as men engaging in "unclean" vices."
From Nicholas Frankel's introduction: "When the novel appeared in Lippincott's" {so after the editorial changes} "it was immediately controversial. To be sure, appreciative and sensitive reviews appeared in Britain and America, but a significant segment of the British prress reacted with outright hostility, condemning the novel as "vulgar', "unclean", "poisonous", "discreditable", and "a sham"."..."Today we can easily recognise these references to unhealthiness, insanity, uncleanliness, and "medico-legal interest" as coded imputations of homosexuality. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that in the Victorian era, sexual preference was less clearly seen as an identity"..."men who participated in London's homosexual subculture"..."would have been viewed by the majority not as homosexuals per se but as men engaging in "unclean" vices."
