Dorian Gray - no 45.

Penguin Classics 2010

Price: a gift from Friend 2; back indicates it was $6.99, reduced to $4.99

History: Friend 2 returned from America with three rather lovely presents for me.

Look: This is the best of the three covers, a very punchy cartoon-style youth with a cold, savage expression. It's simplicity - three colours, line drawing - is eyecatching and alluring. Dark blue isn't a colour I'd associate with the book, but it works marvellously. A favourite design.

Introductions/appendices:
Short biography and chronology, plus a facimile of the original front page - nothing worth writing about.

Captured: ?-8-10

Dorian Gray - no. 44

Barnes and Noble Classics (2003)

Price: a gift from Friend 2; back indicates it was $4.95

History: Friend 2 returned from America with three rather lovely presents for me. This is my favourite of the three.

Look: I've ogled this one on the web before, but I've always felt that ordering them over the internet is a very slippery slope. I've always hated collectors to whom completeness is more important than the things themselves, and the chase is part of the fun. A lovely red cover, and a very intriguing painting. I don't technically like young men on the covers of these books, but this is one of my many exceptions. The painting has such a strange expression - I love how wooden he seems.

Introductions/appendices: Lovely! A two page biography, a four page timeline, and a lovely lengthy introduction. No time to discuss it now, but I remember enjoying it.

But it's after the endnotes that get interesting. "Inspired by" lists other media inspired by Oscar Wilde's life, Dorian Gray films and operas, and sequels to the book. I enjoyed having my mind tickled by six "Questions" for a book club or school group. I particularly enjoyed "is sin ugly or beautiful?". There are some comments on the novel from Wilde himself, Alfred Douglas and James Joyce. And a tasty further reading section.

This copy is notable for providing me with a formidable to-devour list. While not necessarily useful to the idle reader, I'm always glad for new related material!

• Lowell Liebermann's Dorian Gray opera. I hope there is a recording...
• The 1997 Dorian sequel in which our hero becomes a master of the dark arts. I unexpectedly enjoyed Will Self's updated take, so am willing to take a chance at Jeremy Reed's.
• Two possible precursours to Dorian:
  
• Ashes of the Future (A Study of Mere Human Nature): The Suicide of Sylvester Gray. Fantastically awful title, proving frustratingly obscure to find.
• Vivian Gray
Mercifully, is on Project Gutenburg. Looking forward to reading this!

Captured: ?-8-10

Dorian Gray - no. 43

Naxos audiobooks - Martin Sheen

Price: a gift from my aunt. As they are tapes, I guess they might have been second hand - no sign of a price tag

History: Do you remember me saying that New Zealand is the home of gorgeous books? Some of my best Dorians have originated from there, and it's nice to see that contiue with a surprise New Year gift through the mail.

Look: The first casette box has one of those oldy worldy images of a young man gracing the cover. I wonder what the sitters for these portraits would have thought of ultimately being associated with such a tarnished figure? It's quite a nice one, though not really Dorianesque. The second box has an image of Oscar Wilde in "the Aesthetic Period".

I was actually pretty comfortable listening to the other audiobook I own (read by Martin Shaw). Sure, the voices were strange, and sure they chopped bits out all over the shop (not that anyone but a nutjob obsessive would notice...), but I know it so well that the words lapse into lullaby rhythms in the background. It's rather soothing. So I will be giving this one a shot

Introductions/appendices: not really. There's a biography of reader Michael Sheen

Captured: 4-1-10

Dorian Gray - no. 41

Broadview Literary Texts

Price: £4.99, technically, but it was a gift

History: I remain endebted to my friends and family for my awesome, and growing, collection. Friend 4 bought this for herself in the first weeks of university because she forgot her own copy, and passed it on when she got home. It's a lovely beastie.

Look: I strongly approve. It's otherworldly, this book - funny colours, funny fonts, but somehow it works. The text is very small, but the pages are very soft. I like it. It is also nowhere near this red in real life, the red is less bright.

Introductions/appendices: This would be a great copy for someone who wants to read a little further than the text, without drowning in academia. There are brief footnotes throughout for the weirder references, a nice introduction, and a series of short appendices (extracts from other relevant works, some trial excerpts, something on A Rebours, and an interesting page on "langour"). If you want to do a proper uni-level essay on the novel, Number 27 is still the one to look for, but this would be perfectly servicable for GSCE/A-Level, or people who just want a little more context.

You can have a flick through this on Google Books, including a better peep at the cover.

Dorian Gray - no. 40

Solar Nocturnal 2000

Price: £9.95, although I used a book token so I logged it under gifts.

History: No really special news about this one at all. Except I had a bit of a joyful breakdown on the bus, coming across one of my favourite passages which I'd forgotten, and explaining animatedly to my companion why it's still the most powerful and beautiful thing I've ever read. And the woman standing opposite, who couldn't help but overhear, me gave me a massive grin. So that was a nice moment.

Look: Can't argue with Aubrey Beardsley, whose art I adore, and is linked to Oscar Wilde because he did the art for Salome. This is a deliberately decadant edition - it's the original text, and that combined with the black cover and the art you can tell they're seeking the thrill-seeker audience. In truth, there isn't anything too too shocking about this book any more, though it hasn't lost its talent to disturb. In fact, it's very similar indeed to No 28. I was actually expecting them to be different prints by the same publisher.

Introductions/appendices: An original text version, although there are no annotations and a very unhelpful (not to mention, fittingly alarmist) introduction by Jeremy Reed. And the preface and extra chapter, stuck on the back. Don;t get me wrong, I like this copy - but I wouldn't recommend it.

But hell - let's celebrate. I just reached 40 copies! Maybe now's a good time to work out the, ahem, material cost of the collection...

And some observations tacked on today:

Friend 4 and I have argued about this a long, long time - the line says "on the eve of his 38th birthday", so does that mean the day before as in Christmas Eve, or eve as in evening? The issue has just been complicated - I've never noticed before, but the Lippincots version places the chapter on the eve of his 32nd birthday, 7th November, while the more familiar copy has his 38th birthday, on the 8th.

As every time I end up sending away all my copies bar one, they soon multiply. I'm currently living in a uni room, and over Christmas I moved the five I'd aquired home, taking me back to my one beloved copy again. This brings me to three again.

http://web.uvic.ca/~gifford/eng433/dorian.htm - I'm watching this site with some interest. The pdf link won't work, but I'm looking forward to the point at which they upload their promised facimile edition.

The Penguin website tells me there is going to be a tie-in edition of the novel to go with the new movie. I haven't explained my feelings towards it on this site yet, mostly because this is meant to be a family-friendly blog. And I'm not sure I could stay within my language remit. The question is, do I buy one of the damn things or not? I'm also considering whether or not to buy the new Classic Book Collection for the DS. It includes Dorian Gray, and would certainly be an interesting one. At the same time, it's £18 and I have no intention of ever buying a Nintendo DS with which to read it. Is it worth it...? Or is it just intensely wasteful for me to keep it in its box?

Dorian Gray - no. 36

Marvel Illustrated

Price: $19.99 according to the back cover

History: Just last week, I popped "graphic novel" into my requests list, and but a few days later I was presented with an overdue birthday present. Fate methinks.

Look: Obviously, a Dorian Gray graphic novel is a world of terrors all of its own, especially for someone who goes frowny faced at covers which depict him. Shouldn't have worried - the style is wonderful, and more importantly, comes so close to what is in my mind. Maybe the descriptions really are that vivid that everyone imagines the same things? I like the little tributes too - in the background of the opium den scene, the moon really is a yellow skull. And the descriptive chapter is all present and correct. Like all the best adaptations, you don't really miss the bits which are cut - and that's saying a lot from me, who knows it far far too well. My only serious complaint on that count was the character of Sybil's mother, whose penchant for melodrama is missed entirely. And that Sybil is dark haired, not blonde - not that it matters (my friends and I have been arguing this for half a year; last night, we decided to check, and I was right - not blonde, not ginger, but dark haired! Ha! So it's a sore point...) Finally, the art is gorgeous in its own right - as is the use of colours and shadows.

It's nice to read as well - and underneath the dust jacket, the hardback is black with gold text, which is always a score for this novel.

Introduction/Appendices: two pages by the guy in charge of the adaptation, two interesting pages at that; the six original covers, and a glossary for the more obscure Victorian words

Dorian Gray no. 34

Penguin Classics, with Bill Amberg, 2008

Price: £50

History: This collection can barely count as my very own. Almost everyone I know has contributed, many by sending me copies from all over the globe, others just by seeking them out for me. Someone tipped me off that there was a very expensive copy in Waterstones, Picadilly - I went hunting, and there it was - in nice neat brown boxes in the corner of that wonderful shop. There are five other books in the collection - "who on EARTH would buy one of these at that price?!", I found myself asking as I gently levered Dorian Gray off the shelf and into my arms. At that point, I thought I'd better OK the purchase with my parents, who offered to get it as a Christmas present. Sorted!

So. £50?! I hear you say. It's a prestige thing. If it weren't for my collection, I too would be asking "who would pay that much for a book? Isn't it the contents that matter?!" But I have wanted a really expensive, deluxe copy for a long time now; and as a collector, don't I deserve one? I'd kill for a first edition, but would never be able to afford one. And I'd be too afraid of mistreating it. No one else, however, has any excuse at all...

Look: The price is down to the leather binding, which surrounds the creamy pages. What's more, it comes in a gorgeous brown card box, wrapped in thin white tissue. It was specially designed by this Bill Amberg character for Penguin. It comes with a bookmark, which has the book's name embossed on it - just in case you forget what you're reading half way through. Although I wouldn't actually use it. According to the information sheet, the binding will actually improve with use. I'm ready to believe them - a bit like expensive designer clothes, in part you are paying for the label, but they also hang together in a way that cheap clothes simply don't.

Introduction/Appendices: None, but there is a slip in the front reminding you why you just wasted so much money, and explaining that the leather comes from naturally dead creatures.

Dorian Gray - no. 29

The Viking Press, 1946

Price: Not sure

History: missing the title of Oldest Copy in the collection by a whisker (well, a year...), this was a present from grandma and one of my faves.

Look: it's thick, with a lovely "OW" on the cover. As it is both quite an old copy, and a thick one, reading is difficult for fear of damaging it. Which is a pity, because...

Introduction/appendices:...because it bills itself as a "portable libray" book - Salome, Earnest, the expurged De Profundis, a selection of poems, letters, reviews and anecdotes pack this into a book I'd love to carry around with me. Shame I'm too worried about damaging it. The introduction by Richard Aldington is pleasantly wry - calling him the "greatest English - pardon! Irish - writer", skeetering off the sex question as quickly as possible and criticising some popular Wilde myths in a way that does still make me think. It also contains a few brilliant 40's generalisations about homosexuality...

Dorian Gray - no. 26

Ward, Lock &co. 1945

Price: £7.99

History: a Chrismas present from Friend 4 in 2007. As it stands, this is my oldest copy - I'm holding out hope to get my hands on, or at least look at one day, an original...

Look: just wonderful. Even though I'll probably be too careful to read it, the thick tatty pages are lovely, and who'da thought that grey would suit this novel so well? The gold, curly text on the spine is sweet too.

Introduction/Appendices: Nothing, aside from the author's dates.

Dorian Gray - no. 25

Great Writers Library, 1986

Price: £4.99

History: A birthday present from my aunt and uncle in New Zealand. Maybe I should move there? All of my really nice copies seem to come from there...

Look: gorgeous in every way. The black leather has an evil, medieval feel; the cover image is pleasingly sepia (even if the gent on the right resembles Sgt Andy "your dad sells apples" Wainwright from Hot Fuzz). The thin paper and splotchy text just increases the antique feel.

Introduction/Appendices: None, but my relations sent it with a cutting from the Weekend Herald about a priest who quoted Oscar Wilde in a book entitled Aphorisms for an Anti-Conformist Christian. It sounds pretty exciting to me. It's a fairly good little article, even if a Catholic establishment figure thinking Wilde had something relevant to say isn't exactly what I'd call news. And the journalist makes the mistake of claiming the book's "moral" is drawn from Catholicism, with "the painting clearly stands for the soul steadily stained by sin regardless od outward claims or the appearance of piety". If there is a moral in there, then I have never found it with any certainty, and I'm positive it isn't that simple...

Dorian Gray - no. 24

Insel Verlag, 2003 (think that's the publishers... )

Price: £4.99

History: A present from my parent's anniversary in Vienna.

Look: quite nasty. Nasty shade of beige, not a particularly nice picture of the author, and threatening typeface on the cover. It's very odd seeing in in German. Dorian is intrinsically linked with France - it is related to the Victorian idea of a "scandalous French novel", and Oscar Wilde went so far as to write his play Salome in the language. Fairly badly I believe, but what do I know? A French copy makes sense - there is no such connection with Germany, and I have always considered the language very harsh for such a delicate novel.

Introduction/Appendices: Norbert Kohl has written a fascinating piece called Culture and Corruption, and my knowledge of German is sufficiently bad that I would never be able to read it.

Dorian Gray - no.22

GF Flammarion, 2006

Price: Don't know.

History: Another French copy, a present from Friend 3.

Look: A very interesting cover image, with a splintered portrait. The French make their books in a wonderfully floppy way, which makes them nice to hold. Presumably, if read, this translation would be slightly different from my other french edition. The translation of books is an interesting area - I've a bilingual friend who claims, for example, that Twilight's Spanish translation is actually a stylistically better written book.

Introduction/Appendices: Pascal Aquien provides what could be a fascinating introduction, if I could read it...

Dorian Gray - no.18

Penguin paint-yer-own-cover (illustrated)

Price: £5

History: This was a present from Friend 2.

Look: This unique copy comes with a completely blank cover, with the idea you design it yourself. What anguish that idea has caused me. Not a picture of Dorian himself, that's certain. Or the author. Which leaves, what? The painting with the purple pall over it? Floorboards have been suggested, and I'm fond of a stylised chaos of intricate beautiful things with fantastic creatures crawling from the corners. In any case, I'd never be able to design something to my satisfaction, but it is a pleasing torment to mull over. I even think a copy of Dorian Gray without a cover is strangely fitting.

Introduction/Appendices: The same as my original Penguin copy.

Dorian Gray - no.14

Guild publishing London 1980

Price: Not sure - it was from a quality 2nd hand bookshop.

History: I've no idea when I got this one, so I popped it at the end, but I remember the circumstance. Grandma described three copies she'd found over the phone (this, I realise, is the benefit of mobile phones with cameras...), and this was the only one I was sure I hadn't got.

Look: It's quite pretty - the cover is gold and green, though the spine looks more like silver and green. I've never worked out whether this is just the effect of the light on it. I'd prefer silver though...

Introduction/Appendices: none, but it contains the Happy Prince, Lord Arthur Saville's Crime and the Canterville Ghost.

Dorian Gray - no.13

Penguin Popular Classics 1994

Price: £1

History: It was a birthday present, 2006. Quite a long story this as well. My grandad asked in a second hand book shop if there were any copies. The owner searched for ages and found one. He thought he'd better get it at that point, seeing as it was cheap and the guy had had to look, even though he wasn't fond of the cover...

Look: ...as chance would have it, it's a cover I positively drooled over the first time I saw it on amazon.com. Friend 4 says it looks like he's doing cross stitch; perhaps, but it is everything an illustration for this book should be. The fact his face is shaded alone wins my respect, never mind the slightly cracked appearence of the image, the generally gloomy tone or the ominous dark window. And I think he's reading a letter...

Introduction/Appendices: none

Dorian Gray - no.9

Classiques de poche 2001

Price: 3,50E

History: Yup, it's in french. I know the text pretty wel, so can almost follow along, but I haven't managed the intro yet. It was a present from Friend 4 c. 30th Nov 2005, and it makes me go gooey just thinking about it.

Look: The cover shows Basil - an unusual, but fitting move. I generally balk at illustrations, but these are really nice. This one's also quite an enjoyable one to just read, it fits cosily in the hand. And there's a pic of the author a few pages in which, que me fait smile...

Introduction/Appendices: It's about 30 pages long, written by Jean-Pierre Naugrette and it looks fascinating. Unfortunately, my French isn't that great...

Another mind blank which brings me up to recently. We're moving house soon. I grudgingly packed up my collection, keeping only my little Collector's Library copy out. That was about three months ago. I now have five copies lying around in my room...like busses, remember?

Dorian Gray - no.7

Chancellor Classics 2005

Price: Not sure.

History: I've no idea whatsoever when or where I got this - I think it might have been a present from mum, during a business trip to South Africa.

Look: Yup, it's pink, but it's also small and hardback and wuvvy, with a red ribbon bookmark. It's got a fantastic black design around the title above the Preface. It's a very lovely copy, with a bit of ye-olde about it. Like what an actual Victorian book would have looked like...

Introduction/Appendices: Only an author biography, but they all have one of them.

Dorian Gray - no.6

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, 2003

Price: £20. Ouch...

History: Xmas 2004, all I wanted was the complete works. Instead I got a small card from my parents reading something along the lines of "Oscar Wilde regrets that it's out of print". I finally got one in the spring of 2005, and it's fantastique! I'm especially fond of the poems in prose. Does this really count as a copy of Dorian? Not as such, but I thought I'd list it anyway...

Look: It's a big hardback thing, with really thin pages...and photos! Not nice to read at all, but it beats not having the "little bits" at all - the essays, poems in prose, those plays and poems which are obscure for good reason...

Introduction/Appendices: Well there are to introductions to the complete works, and an individual introduction to each section (poetry, essays etc) but nothing really specific about Dorian Gray.