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El retrato de Dorian Gray
344 pages, Hardcover
Published November 3, 2025
About the author
Oscar Wilde
5,874 books39.5k followersOscar 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 11, 2026
Siempre me había llamado la atención este libro y ahora aprovechando que me regalaron esta edición tan bonita (y que me tengo que estudiar a Oscar Wilde para las opos), me parecía el momento perfecto para leérmelo. Aunque me ha gustado, no puedo darle más de 3 estrellas porque supongo que me esperaba algo más. Creo que me había creado unas expectativas muy altas y aunque la historia me había gustado, pues no deja de ser un libro del siglo XIX y leyéndolo, por el estilo, por la forma de narrar y todo eso, me venían recuerdos de Vietnam de cuando tuve que leerme varios libros clásicos de literatura francesa para la carrera y pues se me llegaban a hacer un poco bola algunas partes. Pero bueno, la historia guay, aunque les odio a todos, el único personaje que me caía bien era Basil y bueno… quien se lo haya leído sabrá lo que pasa jsjsjsj (todo es culpa de Lord Henry, espero no ver ni una reseña en la que se le alabe porque le odio eh)
January 29, 2026
4,5/5⭐
Leer "El retrato de Dorian Gray" ha sido como entrar en un salón lleno de espejos: cada página refleja belleza, ironía y un toque de oscuridad. Wilde escribe con una elegancia que deslumbra, y me encontré subrayando frases como si fueran pequeñas joyas. La historia me hizo pensar en lo que escondemos detrás de las apariencias y en cómo la obsesión por la perfección puede volverse contra nosotros. Me ha encantado descubrir a Oscar Wilde: su estilo es tan brillante que convierte la lectura en una experiencia única.
Leer "El retrato de Dorian Gray" ha sido como entrar en un salón lleno de espejos: cada página refleja belleza, ironía y un toque de oscuridad. Wilde escribe con una elegancia que deslumbra, y me encontré subrayando frases como si fueran pequeñas joyas. La historia me hizo pensar en lo que escondemos detrás de las apariencias y en cómo la obsesión por la perfección puede volverse contra nosotros. Me ha encantado descubrir a Oscar Wilde: su estilo es tan brillante que convierte la lectura en una experiencia única.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews