All Program Dates
Monday, February 17, 2025 | 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
February 24, 2025 | 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
March 3, 2025 | 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
March 10, 2025 | 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
March 17, 2025 | 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
March 24, 2025 | 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Registration
This program is subscription-only.
General subscription is $100. Rosenbach members: special rate of $75.
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Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If you have questions, please call (215) 732-1600 or email rsvp@rosenbach.org.
Subscribers can watch live on Mondays, or view the recordings, available (for subscribers only) until 30 days after the show finishes its run.
If you register after the program begins on Feb 3, you will receive links to the recordings of any episodes you missed.
Description
Join us on a new Biblioventure with a special subscription-only show on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray has a secret, but it can only be revealed if you see his painted portrait. Wilde’s book has been classified as a philosophical novel, a moral fantasy, a Gothic horror, and a gay novel (or at least a novel about suppressed homosexuality). We’ll talk through all aspects of this thrilling and terrifying book. For eight weeks, Edward G. Pettit and a team of rotating cohosts will dive deep into discussions about this groundbreaking novel, first published as a novella in the July 1890 edition of Lippincott’s Magazine. Each week, we’ll lead a conversational annotation with context and insight about Wilde and his book and field questions from the audience. As with all our Biblioventures series, we’ll also enjoy some signature cocktails, with original recipes provided to all subscribers of the program.
Joining Edward G. Pettit as rotating cohosts for Dorian Gray will be Dr. Anastasia Klimchynskaya, who has previously cohosted Sundays with Frankenstein and Sherlock Mondays; Paul M. Chapman, last seen as cohost on Monsters and Ghosts: Jekyll & Hyde; and Dr. Petra Clark and Dr. Samantha Nystrom, who have both been leading the Rosenbach’s Book Club series, The Ladies of the House of Love.
The Rosenbach has a significant collection of Oscar Wilde’s manuscripts, books, and photographs, which we will feature in several of our episodes.
Sponsored by Gage Johnston and Jack I. Jallo
Reading Schedule
The text we’ll use is the 1891 published version in 20 chapters. The publication history of Dorian Gray is a little complicated:
In July 1890, Dorian was first published in Lippincott’s Magazine, in Philadelphia and London, in a shorter 13 chapter version.
In April or May of 1891, the publishers Ward, Lock & Co. issued an EXPANDED version of the novel. Wilde added 5 more chapters (this is the version we’re using for the show).
We’ll use the 1891 text, but we’ll refer to 1890 edition, as well as the earliest manuscript. In 2011, Harvard Press published an “annotated, uncensored edition” of Dorian based on the manuscript Wilde sent to Lippincott’s. The magazine toned down (edited/censored) some of the more homosexual allusions in the work.
pdf of 1891 first edition (from Google Books)
You can find the 1891 text (with 20 chapters) online at Project Gutenberg here.
If you are interested, the original 1890 version (13 chapters) is available at Project Gutenberg here.
And here is the reading schedule with cohosts for each episode:
Ep 1, Feb 3 Chapters 1-2 with Paul M. Chapman
Ep 2, Feb 10 Chs 3-4 with Dr. Anastasia Klimchynskaya
Ep 3, Feb 17 Chs 5-7 with Dr. Samantha Nystrom
Ep 4, Feb 24 Chs 8-10 with Dr. Petra Clark
Ep 5, Mar 3 Chs 11-13 with Dr. Anastasia Klimchynskaya
Ep 6, Mar 10 Chs 14-15 with Dr. Samantha Nystrom
Ep 7, Mar 17 Chs 16-18 with Dr. Petra Clark
Ep 8, Mar 24 Chs 19-20 with Paul M. Chapman
Host
Edward G. Pettit is the Sunstein Senior Manager of Public Programs for the Rosenbach and has been hosting their Biblioventures series since 2020. The series has covered Dracula, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, The Pickwick Papers, Sherlock Holmes, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and A Christmas Carol. Pettit has also led many courses for the Rosenbach on 19th Century literature. When not smoking, drinking, and talking about books during Biblioventures episodes, Pettit can be found at home, in his third floor library, smoking, drinking, and reading books.
Cohosts
Dr. Anastasia Klimchynskaya is a scholar of nineteenth-century literature with a deep interest in the intersections between science, technology, literature, and the cultural imagination. Having called Philadelphia home while receiving her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, she has previously appeared on the Rosenbach’s Sundays with Frankenstein and Sherlock Mondays. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University, where she teaches primarily Victorian literature, Gothic, and science fiction.
Paul M. Chapman has a long-standing fascination with the fog-shrouded world of the Victorian and Edwardian Gothic. He is the author of Birth of a Legend: Count Dracula, Bram Stoker and Whitby – an in-depth study of the Yorkshire fishing port’s profound influence on Stoker’s masterpiece – and has written introductions to Dracula, and The House By the Churchyard and In a Glass Darkly by the enigmatic master of Victorian Irish Gothic, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu – Stoker’s literary progenitor and a major source of inspiration for the haunted fiction of Montague Rhodes James. In 2018, Paul, together with Mark Jones and Teresa Dudley, co-organised the ‘Through a Glass Darkly’ M. R. James conference in York, which examined the great ghost story writer’s 1898 research trip to that ancient city and its Mediaeval churches. Paul has written on James for the journal Ghosts & Scholars, in which he identified a significant and previously unnoticed real-life candidate for one of MRJ’s most memorable fictional creations, the diabolical Karswell in ‘Casting the Runes’. Paul is also known for his work on Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle, and co-hosts the Doings of Doyle podcast with Mark Jones BSI. He has written widely on Holmes and Doyle for various publications, including Sherlock, The Musgrave Papers, ACD, Canadian Holmes, Steel True, Blade Straight and Wormwood. Paul was a cohost on the subscription only series Sherlock Mondays: The Hound of the Baskervilles. And also cohosted the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde episodes of Biblioventures: Monsters and Ghosts. He is currently working on a book-length study of Conan Doyle and the Gothic.
Dr. Samantha Nystrom is a Stewardship Writer at Jefferson. She is an avid reader, having a long-standing interest in Gothic literature and mysteries. These interests helped her develop and serve as a co-host for two of the Rosenbach’s book clubs: Ladies of the House of Love and Body in the Library. She earned her PhD in English Literature from the University of Delaware. While at the UD, she researched and published on environmental studies, nineteenth-century literature, and novel studies, as well as taught classes ranging from film studies and British Literature to media theory and composition. When she isn’t reading and writing, she can be found coloring, going on a walk, or planning her next trip. Always a fan of Oscar Wilde–having selected The Picture of Dorian Gray for the inaugural season of the Ladies of the House of Love–this summer she learned more about his life while traveling around Ireland.
Dr. Petra Clark is an Instruction Librarian for Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library, Museums & Press, where she recently co-curated the exhibit What They Saved: Souvenirs and Mementos in Special Collections (August 2024 – May 2025). She earned a PhD in English from the University of Delaware, with a concentration in late-Victorian literature and art, and has published scholarship on various related topics including Oscar Wilde’s work and cultural influence. Petra is also one of the founders and co-facilitators of two books clubs at the Rosenbach, The Ladies of the House of Love (Gothic literature) and The Body in the Library (mystery). When she isn’t haunting the rare book stacks, she can usually be found reading with her cats.