In which I reveal the present I’ve been making for my wife’s upcoming birthday.

The Process

278 words about creative — 14:36 · 23rd Sep 2011

So, the missus liked her book(s).. a lot.. unless she’s lying of course. But for the sake of this post I’m going to assume she isn’t. So yeah, surprise! She got “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde, inspired by the the first edition, first printing of 1891. It’s her favourite fictional book.. ever.

In that book, Dorian receives a book by Sir Henry Wotton.. allegedly—according to Oscar Wilde himself in his trial—that particular book is “À rebours” by J.-K. Huysmans, 1884. So naturally because I did tell you was going to put a book in her book.. dawg. I re-created “À rebours” as well. And based it on the first edition, first printing of that one as well.

Here’s a huge picture of the basic progress because.. well you know the old saying, “A picture is worth more than a thousand words”.. well.. Here’s 9000 words for you. Not including the preface. My apologies for the final picture being kind of blurry and crappy.

Editors (still me) note: Yes, The Picture of Dorian Gray was technically first published in 20 June 1890, in the July issue of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. But, that one doesn’t really have a book cover—so to speak—to base anything on, so I went with the first edition, first printing instead. However the book itself is still the 13 chapter non-revised edition. Not the 20 chapter edited for less homo-eroticism. So there. Enjoy the picture(s).

The process of resaerching the book À rebours, finding it and its cover to recreate it for modern digital printing.
I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

You’ve just read The Process.

In which, 12 years ago, I wrote 278 words about creative and I covered topics, such as: bookbinding , dorian gray , books , and behind the scenes .