The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

What if you never aged, but your soul bore the scars of your sins?
Oscar Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is a dark, provocative tale of vanity, temptation, and moral decay. Dorian Gray is a young man of unmatched beauty who, after a careless wish, finds himself blessed—or cursed—with eternal youth. His portrait, hidden away from the world, becomes a chilling mirror of his inner corruption. As Dorian plunges deeper into a hedonistic lifestyle, the painting grows more grotesque, bearing the burden of his immoral acts.
Wilde’s dazzling prose and biting wit take aim at Victorian society’s obsession with appearances, exposing the danger of choosing surface over substance. Both a philosophical reflection and a suspenseful gothic drama, this novel remains one of the most haunting explorations of the cost of living without conscience.
Daring, stylish, and unforgettable, The Picture of Dorian Gray challenges readers to how far would you go to stay young forever?

Genres: Classics

Paperback

About the author

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh my god that last paragraph.

these three win the most toxic trio award. the joy I felt when Lord Henry said he got divorced?? fantastic. good for her. get outta there victoria

[Camomille · Rating 5 out of 5]

rip dorian gray you would have loved instagram filters

[alli · Rating 4 out of 5]

like a nerd i really enjoyed reading both the original and edited publications side by side. boy oh boy does oscar have things to say!

[Nettles]

Does anyone know if this version makes it clear what was censored?

ISBN: 1803986409

[Lili · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book could be 100 pages shorter and it wouldn't be a problem. The story itself is good, but it is too slow, and there is so much irrelevant information that at points it was insufferable. I am glad that I have finally finished this

[Megan Wick · Rating 5 out of 5]

ran this back for my literature & sexuality class. still a banger as always

[Holly Perna · Rating 5 out of 5]

finally got back into reading this and absolutely loved it. definitely one of the more easy classics to read

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written. Wilde’s prose is just as rich and imaginative as his poetry. Equally philosophical as it was disturbing.

The idea behind the book is very interesting. Almost ahead of its time in its Gothic, supernatural, surrealist premise.

Literally one of the gayest books I’ve ever read, and I think the entire book can be read through that lens. Lord Henry embodies debauchery, pleasure, the wants and truths that society aims to suppress. He and Dorian also have canon chemistry and tension; in fact, Lord Henry is Dorian’s sexual awakening. Interestingly, Basil Hallward is equally as queer coded, but is undoubtedly a force of moral good. So in Wilde’s eyes, it is not homosexuality that is the sin, but instead just general unrepressed, all-encompassing sexuality and depravity.

Also interesting to view the work through a feminist lens. Lord Harry consistently mocks and discredits women- but he is not someone to replicate. I think Wilde shows respect to the actual women characters.

Chapter 7 was absolutely delightful. A challenge for Wilde and the reader. He, as the narrator/author, is flexing all of his miscellaneous knowledge and research, and he challenges the reader to understand each reference. So fun looking it all up.

Favorite quote:
“As he looked back on man moving through History, he was haunted by a feeling of loss. So much had been surrendered! and to such little purpose! There had been mad willful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear, and whose result was a degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape.” (Pg. 151)

[Katie-Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wrote on the margins, “there is beautiful, and some ugly stuff in here.” What kept pulling me in were the conversations, point of views, and (at most times) annoying personalities or superiority complexes that are in the book. Which is interesting to me, because yes there were a lot of the characters I didn’t like, but what Wilde was either saying through them, or demonstrating, it nonetheless kept me reading and interested. However it took me quite a while to finish and I’m not here singing its praises tbh. It’s a good book, it’s interesting. But I don’t think it’s a must read and will change the way you think like… these are rich people who are grappling with the whole “intellect vs emotion,” and what is “beautiful” and “right,” like…. Idk it can kinda beeeeee a bit of an eye roll…. I mean this just feels like a story about narcissism and its destruction. Which is interesting too bc like… Lord Henry, THEE narcissus is never ever harmed or put in his place like… he just destroys everything and everyone around him without care but I guess that’s the portrait! Narcissism does just that. Yeah, anyway; yes, white people are prone to narcissism and it turns things ugly ugly ugly.
Art vs intellect; hedonism; morality; etc it’s discussed here. I can see how it blew up in popularity within its historical context for sure.

[aj ☆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

'There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear, and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape.'

this is my second time reading this book, yet my first time reading the 1891 rerelease. Wilde is such a fantastic writer and this story is his masterpiece.

[Erich · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. Dorian and Lord Henry are the awful characters you love to hate. Just deplorable people. I read a lot of books on Narcissism Personality Disorder recently, too, so it was a great surprise when I realized Dorian is a narcissist. I didn't read the first version, but the latter. I kind of want to savor it and go back and read again after it's settled in my mind and after I've had a chance to write and reflect on it a bit more in-depth.

[Elizabeth Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still good.

[Noah Gerrits · Rating 4 out of 5]

First half is agonizing if you don’t like having a think
It gets better in the second half trust the process!

[cami · Rating 5 out of 5]

the ending was no different from what i was expecting but in a good way. i was PRAYING it’d end like that and im so glad it did. i loved this

[Behruz Sotiboldiev · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of exchanging the soul for an eternal youth may seem the interesting one, but in the case of this novel the story becomes the most tedious of all. True, the period of time must be taken into consideration, but there are many more novels which had been written even earlier one can find more captivating and far more interesting than the Picture of Dorian Gray.

[naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent collection of dorian gray criticisms, analyses and background. very informative and covers a lot of bases regarding the novel. both versions of the novel included notes that enhanced the experience. i’d recommend to anyone interested in learning more about dorian gray—and the influences behind it, along with oscar wilde.

[Sare · Rating 3 out of 5]

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