In his preface to the 1891 edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde wrote, “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written or badly written. That is all.” Despite this defense, Wilde’s book was condemned by the British public as vulgar (Flood). Concerns about morality are still included today among the long list of reasons many Americans present when challenging the availability of certain books within schools and public libraries. While explaining the difference between censorship and book banning in a 2022 article by the Christian Science Monitor, author and researcher Elliot Kueker is quoted as asking, “… Can a text contain morality and ethics, or is it the reader who interprets that?” More than a century earlier, Oscar Wilde attempted to answer that very question in his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, where he wrote, “No artist has ethical sympathies.” He goes on to defend art by attempting to turn scrutiny onto the reader: “Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” According to Wilde, the interpretation of a work of art lies solely with that of a reader. By that argument, it would stand to reason that while one person may find a piece of literature to be immoral, another may find the same work perfectly acceptable. Herein lies the true challenge: if individuals interpret art uniquely, what gives some individuals the power to determine which pieces of literature are offensive to the masses?

It's an odd question that creates a difficult problem for the United States. Offending someone’s morals is not a crime, and policing literature that a fraction of the American population finds distasteful is a waste of government resources. When one reader finds a novel to be immoral and a second reader does not find it to be immoral, those in favor of banning books want to assign absolute authority over the issue to the first reader. The opinion of the second reader is disregarded. What, beyond personal interest, makes that first reader’s opinion the superior one? While outright book banning is an eye-catching topic, there are also sneakier ways to control the public’s access to literature. Chief among them is censorship through editing. Two authors from deeply different times who were both affected by this practice are Oscar Wilde and Roald Dahl.

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray exists in three forms: the original, unedited manuscript, the 1890 Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine version, and the expanded, 1891 book format. The 1891 version is the most cohesive plot-wise and also the one most commonly accessible today. When the story was initially submitted to Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, it was considered unpublishable. This was, according to Lippincott’s editor J. M. Stoddart, due to “a number of things which an innocent woman would make an exception to” (Temple). Stoddart and several other editors at the magazine proceeded to cut a number of allusions to homosexuality from Wilde’s manuscript and publish it without informing him of the edits or seeking his approval for them. While a modern reader may find this decision damning, their choice not to inform Wilde of the changes is not as malicious as it may initially appear. According to Nicholas Frankel, the editor of “The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition, “it was not then customary for American magazine editors to provide British authors with proofs” (Frankel 41-42). Frankel’s edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, published through Harvard University Press, is a reconstruction of Wilde’s original manuscript. It relies on margin notes written in Wilde’s own hand and reinstates material stricken by Stoddart and his fellow editors. This edition is the most faithful version of Wilde’s original story available today. Frankel also supplies readers with thorough textual notes that explain which sections of the text were altered or removed altogether across the three versions of the story.

Some of the most striking instances of censorship occur between the Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine version and the 1891 expanded text. While the Lippincott’s version was greatly toned down from the original, it was still more explicit in its coding of homosexual relationships than the 1891 version was. Many of these changes greatly alter the tone of the relationship between Dorian Gray and Basil Hallward, two of the central characters in the narrative. One early example of this in the text occurs when Basil is describing Dorian to his friend Lord Henry. He says, “… I couldn’t be happy if I didn’t see him every day. Of course sometimes it is only for a few minutes. But a few minutes with somebody one worships mean a great deal” (Wilde 83). When Lord Henry questions if he’s being serious about worshiping Dorian, Basil doubles down and makes similar statements throughout the rest of the novel. In the 1891 version, the word “worship” is removed, and Basil instead tells Lord Henry that Dorian is essential to his work as a painter. While the 1891 version still implies there is a certain depth to the relationship, it removes the more explicit connotations that accompany the word “worship.” Similar alterations appear throughout the 1891 text.

Lippincott’s control over the 1890 version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was heavily influenced by fear. Victorian attitude towards same-sex love was anything but warm and receptive, especially with the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which criminalized “gross indecency” between men. This is the law under which Oscar Wilde was eventually prosecuted several years after the publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the 1891 expanded version, Wilde made many changes to the manuscript himself out of a similar fear. This creates a strange conflict between the three existing versions of the story. Wilde lacked control of the edits made to the 1890 edition of the story, yet in 1891, when he maintained far more control, he made numerous similar edits himself with the intent to shield the homosexual undertones from Victorians who would find it immoral. In doing so, an important aspect of the relationship between Dorian and Basil is essentially lost. While people today have access to all three versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray, the 1891 version is still the most widely studied by students. The exclusion of the other two versions creates a false pretext that the 1891 version is Wilde’s truest vision of the work, despite being the most heavily altered by a variety of hands. This creates a conflict between the different versions for students, scholars, and casual readers alike as they parse through the texts. What should they be reading in order to experience the most accurate rendering of Wilde’s vision?

A modern example of censorship through editing is the case of children’s author Roald Dahl. In February of 2023, CBS News reported the decision by Puffin Books and the Roald Dahl Story Company to make a series of changes to Dahl’s books for the sensitivity of modern readers. According to the CBS News article, changes would remove offensive words such as “fat,” “ugly,” and “crazy,” in addition to adding entire new passages that were not written by Dahl. The decision was met by outrage and accusations of censorship by the public. 

Unlike in Wilde’s case, these changes are not being made due to fear of prosecution. Rather, they are being made to protect the sensitivities of modern readers. While Roald Dahl’s descriptions of some characters are unacceptable by modern standards, they also create an opening for conversation between parent and child. These are teachable moments; eliminating these “offensive” words and passages destroys a parent’s chance to discuss the world with their child and prepare them for what they may encounter. While Dahl’s language may be objectionable by today’s standards, it is still his language. Altering his novels to suit modern sensibilities is revisionism. Rather than holding Dahl accountable as an author and a person, erasing the things modern readers don’t like about his works allows people to both pretend he didn’t write them and present him as a different type of person altogether. Leaving his work unaltered creates a space for conversation and debate while remaining true to the author’s vision, however controversial that vision may be. Accountability is an important trait across many aspects of society, and teaching children it to children from a young age is a way to shape the path America will take moving forward.

The censorship of literature, or art in general, is an act that breeds ignorance amongst Americans. Return, for a moment, to Oscar Wilde’s claim that “there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.” A work of art cannot, in and of itself, be considered immoral. It is the individual who looks upon it that assigns a work such a value. In the case of Roald Dahl’s books, a publishing house and a company made that decision on behalf of not just America, but readers across the world. Censorship like this eliminates a reader’s right to individual interpretation of art and instead makes a collective decision for the entire audience based on the whims of a few. It removes a degree of autonomy from the population and, as Americans have proven countless times, they do not appreciate their individual freedoms being tampered with.

Works Cited

Flood, Alison. “Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray published.” The Guardian. 27 April 2011, file:///C:/Users/sboud/Zotero/storage/QR8TG6EY/dorian-gray-oscar-wilde-uncensored.html. Accessed 28 January 2023.

Frankel, Nicholas. The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition. Belknap Press-Harvard University Press, 2011.

Mandler, C. “Changes to Roald Dalh’s books spark criticism: ‘Absurd censorship.’” CBS News. 19 February, 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/roald-dahls-changes-childrens-books-rushdie-telegraph/. Accessed 3 March, 2023.

Lawrence, Lee. “Rising book bans: Ground for moral panic?” The Christian Science Monitor. 9 February, 2022, file:///C:/Users/sboud/Zotero/storage/Y4CY77V7/Rising-book-bans-Grounds-for-moral-panic.html. Accessed 3 March, 2023.

Temple, Emily. “A Close Reading of the ‘Censored’ Passages of The Picture of Dorian Gray.Literary Hub. 20 June, 2018, file:///C:/Users/sboud/Zotero/storage/AKM3ZZ3L/a-close-reading-of-the-originally-censored-passages-of-the-picture-of-dorian-gray.html. Accessed 3 March, 2023.


 At Your Own Peril by Skyler Boudreau