30 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2023
    1. secret

      From LAWLER 233: Stoddart cancelled the following lines in the typescript: "There was love in every line, and in every touch there was passion."

      From "Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, Annotated & Uncensored": This sentiment belongs to an established literary convention: the artistic process is being equated with sexual intimacy. Normally, however, the artist is male and his subject (or model) female. Wilde is adding an unmistakably homoerotic twist to this tradition.

    1. Victoria

      From LAWLER 276: Stoddart cancelled the following: "She was desperately in love with you at one time, Dorian. It used to amuse me to watch her paying you compliments. You were so charmingly indifferent. Do you know I really miss her? She never bored me. She was so delightfully improbably in everything that she did."

    2. wretched

      From LAWLER 275: After "wretched," Wilde originally had the following passage: "Upon the other hand, had she become your mistress, she would have lived in the society of charming and cultivated men. You would have educated her, taught her how to dress, how to talk, how to move. You would have made her perfect, and she would have been extremely happy. After a time, no doubt, you would have grown tired of her. She would have made a scene. You would have made a settlement. Then a new career would have begun for her." Stoddart cut this entire section to eliminate ambiguity.

    1. had caroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables, and supped in an ivory manger with a jewel-frontleted horse;

      From LAWLER 254: Stoddart changed what was originally "had drank the live philter of Caesonia, and wore the habit of Venus by night, and a false gilded beard."

    2. room

      From LAWLER 252: The conclusion of this paragraph, crossed out by Stoddart in the typescript, was as follows: "It was said that even the sinful creatures who prowl the streets at night had cursed him as he passed by, seeing in him a corruption greater than their own and knowing but too well the horror of his real life." An additional passage in the same spirit, which Wilde blotted out in the manuscript, described Dorian's appeal in terms of his "strange and dangerous charm."

    3. up

      From LAWLER 240: Stoddart cancelled the following here: "Le Secret de Raoul par Catulle Sarrazin. What a curious title." All subsequent references to the title of the notorious yellow book were also removed by Stoddart. The author and title are fictitious, although Wilde knew a Gabriel Sarrazin, a French writer who reviewed for Wilde's Woman's World magazine. The title may have suggested to Stoddart the scandalous French novel by Rachilde (Marguerite Vallette) Monsieur Venus (1899), in which there is a character, M. Raeoule de Vénérande.

  2. Apr 2023
    1. yours

      From LAWLER 200: Was originally "your mistress," but Stoddart changed it. Wilde altered Stoddart's emendation in 1891, making it "I suppose she will belong to you some day."

      ZABROUSKI: I found this specific change interesting, for it seems like such a minor alteration yet makes a big impact in the grand scheme of things. Lawler claimed that the 1891 alteration is "stronger" than what is here. Given the time this was published, that claim rings true; because Victorian women were typically viewed as property or arm candy rather than an actual partner, saying the phrase "belong to" would have been fitting for a heterosexual Victorian man.

    2. And now tell me,—reach me the matches, like a good boy: thanks,—tell me, what are your relations with Sibyl Vane?"

      From LAWLER 200: This is another of the series of bowdlerizations by Stoddart. This line was written by Wilde: "is Sybil Vane your mistress?" Stoddart simply rewrote it in its present form, and although Wilde made an addition in 1891, he did not restore the original reading."