Ethnic Notions is a catalog of images exploring racist memorabilia from the collection of Jan Faulkner, examining racial stereotypes in commercial imagery from toys to sheet music. Over 200 items are examples of how the black image has been distorted over the years. The black and white images provide powerful testimony.

Ethnic Notions: Black Images In The White Mind explores American racial stereotypes in commercial imagery, including toys, household items, postcards, sheet music, and advertisements. More than two hundred items showcased in these pages accurately depict the ways in which the black image was distorted and black people misrepresented in the broader American culture from 1847 to the present day in order to establish and reinforce the existing social discrepancies, justify discrimination, and perpetuate traditional majority/minority relationships in the county. Ethnic Notions is very highly recommended reading for Black Studies, social issues, and American cultural history reading lists and library reference collections.

I read this book when researching a paper I was writing on Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!" and it was excellent. The particular paper I was writing was on the character of Jim Bond, but I really wish I had found it earlier when I wrote one on "miscegenation" -- the racist concept of "mixed blood" in "Absalom, Absalom!". It was precise, interesting and well-researched. It is particularly helpful for anyone doing research on William Faulkner's works specifically related to people of color. It focuses on the Sutpen family, but I think there's useful information that can also be related to other works.

_The Picture of Dorian Gray_, a story of morals, psychology and poetic justice, has furnished Oscar Wilde with the status of a great writer. It takes place in 19th-century England, and tells of a man in the bloom of his youth who will remain forever young.

Basil Hallward is a merely average painter until he meets Dorian Gray and becomes his friend. But Dorian, who is blessed with an angelic beauty, inspires Hallward to create his ultimate masterpiece. Awed by the perfection of this rendering, he utters the wish to be able to retain the good looks of his youth while the picture were the one to deteriorate with age. But when Dorian discovers the painting cruelly altered and realizes that his wish has been fulfilled, he ponders changing his hedonistic approach.

_Dorian Gray_'s sharp social criticism has provoked audible controversy and protest upon the book's 1890 publication, and only years later was it to rise to classic status. Reminiscent of a Greek tragedy, it is popularly interpreted as an analogy to Wilde's own tragic life. Despite this, the book is laced with the right amounts of the author's perpetual jaunty wit.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, a story of morals, psychology and poetic justice, has furnished Oscar Wilde with the status of a classical writer. It takes place in 19th-century England, and tells of a man in the bloom of his youth who will remain forever young.

Basil Hallward is a merely average painter until he meets Dorian Gray and becomes his friend. But Dorian, who is blessed with an angelic beauty, inspires Hallward to create his ultimate masterpiece. Awed by the perfection of this rendering, he utters the wish to be able to retain the good looks of his youth while the picture were the one to deteriorate with age. But when Dorian discovers the painting cruelly altered and realizes that his wish has been fulfilled, he ponders changing his hedonistic approach.

Dorian Gray's sharp social criticism has provoked audible controversy and protest upon the book's 1890 publication, and only years later was it to rise to classical status. Written in the style of a Greek tragedy, it is popularly interpreted as an analogy to Wilde's own tragic life. Despite this, the book is laced with the right amounts of the author's perpetual jaunty wit.

Oscar Wilde is a man who is obsessed by appearances. In this particular novel, he follows from the moment Dorian Gray sells his soul to the devil named beauty and youth, pleasure and enjoyment, to his death and he describes how someone who looks perfect, perfectly young, intelligent, brilliant, beautiful, moral and healthy is in fact nothing but a monster decaying in all possible immoral actions, deeds and ways just under the surface. It is a very strong criticism of victorian society that considers appearances as more important than real ethics and morality. He exposes the hypocrisy of such a society where a whole class of people are nothing but perambulating pictures of perfection hiding the mire and mud of crime and evil. We can also feel another dilemma in this book. Oscar Wilde's own dilemma who has to keep up appearances, the appearances of a well behaved, well educated and perfectly integrated man in this aristocratic society of his, and who yet lives a passion and a whole basket of desires and impulses that are absolutely rejected as crimes by victorian society. We know he will not be able to hide this deeper nature forever. But the book shows that no one can evade one's being exposed and rejected, condemned and sentenced to some punishment forever. There always comes a moment when one will be exposed and rejected. This shows how deeply Oscar Wilde must have suffered in his life. The painting is nothing but a mirror of the deeper self of Dorian Gray, but a mirror who will become one day his accuser.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan.