The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Uncensored Original Text (Annotated) (First Ebook Edition)

by Oscar Wilde

  Oscar Wilde

  The Picture of Dorian Gray

  The Uncensored Original Text (1890)

  Edited by N. John McArthur

  Stonewall Riot Press (copyright 2011)

  Contact the press at:

  stonewallriotpress@gmail.com

  Editor’s Introduction

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  Historical Context and Textual Annotations

  Editor’s Introduction

  In early 1890, Oscar Wilde submitted the typescript of his new novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, to J.M. Stoddart, the editor of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, which had contracted to publish it. Stoddart decided that the typescript contained “a number of things which an innocent woman would make an exception to,” and vowed to edit it to “make it acceptable to the most fastidious taste.” Wilde did not approve these changes, or even see them till he received his copy of the magazine in June 1890. But even this censored version was attacked as “poisonous” by the press, and Wilde was pressured into making further changes for the 1891 publication of the novel in book form. He cut more suggestive passages, and added several chapters to make the work’s supposed moral purpose more obvious. The original typescript was never published, and was forgotten by everyone outside the small community of professional Wilde scholars.

  When I first read the typescript, which is housed at the UCLA library, I was immediately seized with the shock that comes from discovering a literary masterpiece for the first time. I had no doubt that this original version – both leaner and more erotic than the later ones – was far superior, was in fact a different novel. Since then I have passionately wanted to see the true Picture brought to a wide audience.

  I was already at work on my edition of the text when I received my copy of Nicholas Frankel’s p-book edition, published in 2011 by Harvard University Press. Though I was somewhat dismayed at having been scooped, I could only admire the quality and thoroughness of Professor Frankel’s scholarship. His notes, which run alongside the text, exceed it in length, and he also provides lavish illustrations and other resources. I heartily recommend this edition for readers seeking a scholarly version for research purposes. I frankly cannot see how it could be superseded.

  My own goal is to provide a reader’s edition, one that presents the text exactly as Wilde originally intended it. I have also provided an afterward that explains in more detail how the text was transformed in its later published version, so that readers can see clearly the effect of the homophobic censorship that has marred Wilde’s masterpiece for over a century.

  I

  The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

  From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

  In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.

  As he looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

  “It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,” said Lord Henry languidly. “You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. The Grosvenor is the only place.”

  “I don't think I will send it anywhere,” he answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. “No, I won't send it anywhere.”

  Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. “Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.”

  “I know you will laugh at me,” he replied, “but I really can't exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it.”

  Lord Henry stretched his long legs out on the divan and shook with laughter.

  “Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same.”

  “Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you were so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him.”

  “You don't understand me, Harry. Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is be
tter not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit quietly and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.”

  “Dorian Gray? Is that his name?” asked Lord Henry, walking across the studio towards Basil Hallward.

  “Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you.”

  “But why not?”

  “Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely I never tell their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. You know how I love secrecy. It is the only thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?”

  “Not at all,” answered Lord Henry, “not at all, my dear Basil. You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she did; but she merely laughs at me.”

  “I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry,” said Basil Hallward, shaking his hands off, and strolling towards the door that led into the garden. “I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose.”

  “Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,” cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the garden together, and for a time they did not speak.

  After a pause Lord Henry pulled out his watch. “I am afraid I must be going, Basil,” he murmured, “and before I go I insist on your answering a question I put to you some time ago.”

  “What is that?” asked Basil Hallward, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

  “You know quite well.”

  “I do not, Harry.”

  “Well, I will tell you what it is.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I must. I want you to explain to me why you won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason.”

  “I told you the real reason.”

  “No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of yourself in it. Now, that is childish.”

  “Harry,” said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, “every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.”

  Lord Henry laughed. “And what is that?” he asked.

  “I will tell you,” said Hallward, and an expression of perplexity came over his face.

  “I am all expectation, Basil,” murmured his companion, looking at him.

  “Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry,” answered the young painter; “and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly believe it.”

  Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from the grass and examined it. “I am quite sure I shall understand it,” he replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk, “and I can believe anything, provided that it is incredible.”

  The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup in the grass, and a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart beating, and wondered what was coming.

  “Well, this is incredible,” repeated Hallward, rather bitterly, --“incredible to me at times. I don’t know what it means. The story is simply this. Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious Academicians, I suddenly became conscious that someone was looking at me. I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. My father destined me for the army. I insisted on going to Oxford. Then he made me enter my name at the Middle Temple. Before I had eaten half a dozen dinners I gave up the Bar, and announced my intention of becoming a painter. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so till I met Dorian Gray. Then--but I don't know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I knew that if I spoke to Dorian I would become absolutely devoted to him, and that I ought not to speak to him. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape.”

  “Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.”

  “I don't believe that, Harry. However, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon. 'You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out. You know her shrill horrid voice?”

  “Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty,” said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long, nervous fingers.

  “I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to Royalties, and people with Stars and Garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was mad of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so mad, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were destined to know each other.”

  “And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?” asked his companion. “I know she goes in for giving a rapid précis of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a most truculent and red-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audi
ble to everybody in the room, something like ‘Sir Humpty Dumpty – you know – Afghan frontier – Russian intrigues: very successful man – wife killed by an elephant – quite inconsolable – want to marry a beautiful American widow – everybody does nowadays – hates Mr Gladstone – but very much interested in beetles – ask him what he thinks of Schouvaloff.’ I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants to know. But what did she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?”

  “Oh, she murmured, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I absolutely inseparable – engaged to be married to the same man – I mean married on the same day – how very silly of me! Quite forget what he does--afraid he--doesn't do anything--Oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr. Gray?' We could neither of us help laughing, and we became friends at once.”

  “Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one,” said the Lord Henry, plucking another daisy.

  Hallward buried his face in his hands. “You don't understand what friendship is, Harry,” he murmured--“or what enmity is, for that matter. You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.”

  “How horribly unjust of you!” cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back and looking up at the little clouds that were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky, like ravelled skeins of glossy white silk. “Yes; horribly unjust of you. I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their brains. A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? I think it is rather vain.”