Dare Not Speak

Both of the books I studied were published, edited by their authors, and published again—Dorian Gray in 1890 and 1891, and Little Women in 1868 and 1880. In my research, I examined the changes (really, the censorship) that was performed by these authors.

Each book features a dust jacket, screenprinted with an original illustration as well as typography vectorized from the first edition. Underneath the dust jacket, screenprinted onto the cover of the book itself, is a different illustration. The image on the dust jacket represents the “censored” story, while the image on the cover represents the “uncensored” one.

Inside, most of the text of each novel has been omitted, leaving empty space in its place. Only text that was added or removed remains—and they’re styled identically. The reader cannot tell which words come from which edition, and the repetition of concepts and fragmented text leaves a feeling of wrongness, of incompleteness. This places the reader more firmly into the shoes of the authors, who were forced to hack apart their own work in order to protect themselves from queerphobic Victorian society.

The type is set in Witchy by Valery Marier. I wanted to use a didone-style typeface to reflect the style of the original editions, but I also wanted to highlight queer creativity by using a typeface from a queer designer. Witchy fit the bill perfectly!

I went through a lot of iterations of each part of this project. I ultimately kept coming back to one question: How can I most effectively tell the story of these books and their censorship?

I received the Award for Artistic Excellence at Meeting of the Minds 2024 for this project, and I am honored and grateful for this recognition of my work.