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The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings
Flamboyant and controversial, Oscar Wilde was a dazzling personality, a master of wit, and a dramatic genius whose sparkling comedies contain some of the most brilliant dialogue ever written for the English stage. Here in one volume are his immensely popular novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray; his last literary work, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” a product of his own prison experience; and four complete plays: Lady Windermere’s Fan, his first dramatic success, An Ideal Husband, which pokes fun at conventional morality, The Importance of Being Earnest, his finest comedy, and Salomé, a portrait of uncontrollable love originally written in French and faithfully translated by Richard Ellmann.
Every selection appears in its entirety–a marvelous collection of outstanding works by the incomparable Oscar Wilde, who’s been aptly called “a lord of language” by Max Beerbohm.
Every selection appears in its entirety–a marvelous collection of outstanding works by the incomparable Oscar Wilde, who’s been aptly called “a lord of language” by Max Beerbohm.
487 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1898
364 people are currently reading
4957 people want to read
About the author
Oscar Wilde
5,485 books38.8k 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 - 30 of 386 reviews
May 15, 2009
I once knew a woman who was the modern day equivalence of Dorian Gray. When I met her, she was nearing her 53rd birthday but didn't look a day older than 35. She was the splitting image of a brunette Grace Kelly. Beautiful was, if even possible, the only word I can use to describe her. From afar or in passing, she looked as if she is the nicest person to ever walk the earth. She looked regal, striking, and sympathetic. But to my surprise, she was nothing like the princess. Her angelic face hid the unfalttering person that was trapped inside her deceitful shell. There was nothing beautiful about her. She was discourteous, bad-mannered, and for a lack of better word, ugly.
As the years came and went, she bagan to dread the inevitable. Fine lines formed between her eyebrows. And when the creases found their way at the corners of her mouth, she forever ceased to smile. Then one day, Mrs. Beverly Hills, that's what I'll call her for the rest of this review, sold her soul to the devil. At $25,000, the devil - who happens to be a well known plastic surgeon - sculpted the perfect 25 year old on Mrs. Beverly Hills. In addition to the Botox and collagen injections that pricked her still youthful face, the devil threw in the perkiest pair of breasts I've ever seen on a middle-aged woman.
It's been 10 years since I first met Mrs. Beverly Hills. She bumped into me some months ago inside an ice cream shop. Mrs. Beverly Hills, who by now would've been 63, looked like a totally different person. The angelic features that once graced her face gave way to a creepy, surprised look. Her rotten attitude, however, never wavered. She is as discourteous and bad-mannered as before. And she was a little more careworn.
There are three lessons I got out of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Here they are:
1. EVERYONE GROWS OLD, EVENTUALLY. We dread it and anxiously wait for it. We grow old. I, too, will grow old. Wrinkles and arthritis will be my companions long after the end of my umpteenth love affair. I cringe at the thought that one day, I will never be as agile and as youthful as I was when I was younger. But that is life.
2. TRUE BEAUTY IS INTERNAL: External beauty is only temporary with a shelf-life lasting, at the most, 10 years. Internal beauty, however, is eternal and blinding. Trust me, nobody notices that mole on your chin.
3. KARMA IS A CRUEL BITCH: 'nuff said.
*It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm too tired to think of what to write next. I think I'll end my review here.
As the years came and went, she bagan to dread the inevitable. Fine lines formed between her eyebrows. And when the creases found their way at the corners of her mouth, she forever ceased to smile. Then one day, Mrs. Beverly Hills, that's what I'll call her for the rest of this review, sold her soul to the devil. At $25,000, the devil - who happens to be a well known plastic surgeon - sculpted the perfect 25 year old on Mrs. Beverly Hills. In addition to the Botox and collagen injections that pricked her still youthful face, the devil threw in the perkiest pair of breasts I've ever seen on a middle-aged woman.
It's been 10 years since I first met Mrs. Beverly Hills. She bumped into me some months ago inside an ice cream shop. Mrs. Beverly Hills, who by now would've been 63, looked like a totally different person. The angelic features that once graced her face gave way to a creepy, surprised look. Her rotten attitude, however, never wavered. She is as discourteous and bad-mannered as before. And she was a little more careworn.
There are three lessons I got out of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Here they are:
1. EVERYONE GROWS OLD, EVENTUALLY. We dread it and anxiously wait for it. We grow old. I, too, will grow old. Wrinkles and arthritis will be my companions long after the end of my umpteenth love affair. I cringe at the thought that one day, I will never be as agile and as youthful as I was when I was younger. But that is life.
2. TRUE BEAUTY IS INTERNAL: External beauty is only temporary with a shelf-life lasting, at the most, 10 years. Internal beauty, however, is eternal and blinding. Trust me, nobody notices that mole on your chin.
3. KARMA IS A CRUEL BITCH: 'nuff said.
*It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm too tired to think of what to write next. I think I'll end my review here.
July 22, 2022
بسهولة شديدة يستحيل البياض سواد لكن كم هو صعب إعادة البياض لقلب اسود مختوم بالمعاصي..مفتون بالاثام..كقلبك يا دوريان♥
هذا وجهه سمح و ملامحه وضاءة تشع نور
و هذا وجهه فظ غليظ خشن حجب نوره
هل وجوهنا تحمل اثامنا؟
هل تجاعيدنا =خطايانا
بالطبع لا☆ و الا لما كان في اللغة تعبيرات مثل و أسفر عن وجهه. .او اماط اللثام عن ملامحه الحقة.. فالشيطان جميل دوما
هل تعبر ملامحنا عن صفاتنا ؟
بمرور الزمن..نعم..لهذا كلنا نخاف مرور الزمن..و بصماته التي يتركها حول العيون المبتسمة دوما..او الجباه العابسةللابد ..لكن تظل العيون مرآة الروح..فقط لمن أجاد قراءتها
هناك من يلبس قناعه فور استيقاظه و يجيد إخفاء وجهه الحقيقي لسنوات..و هناك من يضع جرائمه و جحوده و سفالاته في دولاب مغلق..و لكن لابد و سيأتي يوم و يتم فتحه..فهل سيتحمل ما سيراه؟؟
قرأتها في سن 18 وظل الجدل الذي اثارته في نفسي حاضرا حتى راجعتها في سن 30
من الكلاسيكيات الواجب قراءتها في سن مبكرة. .في سن الجمال والشباب..و من افضل مائة رواية باللغة الإنجليزية
لا يخطر على بالك للحظة واحدة ان كلنا دوريان جراي..ابدا ..نعم كل منا لديه دولابه المغلق على ما ستره الله عليه..لكننا نحمل اخطاءنا في قلوبنا و عقولنا ..لا مهرب في وجود الضمير
اختلف انا مع اوسكاروايلد في حياته ومبادئه واسلوبه بل وكثير من اعماله ولكن مع دوريان الامر يختلف.. فهي مرآة جيدة لنقاط ضعف هامة بالنفس البشرية..ولم تكن لتحوز هذا القدر من الاهتمام لوكانت بطلتها إمرأة
هذا وجهه سمح و ملامحه وضاءة تشع نور
و هذا وجهه فظ غليظ خشن حجب نوره
هل وجوهنا تحمل اثامنا؟
هل تجاعيدنا =خطايانا
بالطبع لا☆ و الا لما كان في اللغة تعبيرات مثل و أسفر عن وجهه. .او اماط اللثام عن ملامحه الحقة.. فالشيطان جميل دوما
هل تعبر ملامحنا عن صفاتنا ؟
بمرور الزمن..نعم..لهذا كلنا نخاف مرور الزمن..و بصماته التي يتركها حول العيون المبتسمة دوما..او الجباه العابسةللابد ..لكن تظل العيون مرآة الروح..فقط لمن أجاد قراءتها
هناك من يلبس قناعه فور استيقاظه و يجيد إخفاء وجهه الحقيقي لسنوات..و هناك من يضع جرائمه و جحوده و سفالاته في دولاب مغلق..و لكن لابد و سيأتي يوم و يتم فتحه..فهل سيتحمل ما سيراه؟؟
قرأتها في سن 18 وظل الجدل الذي اثارته في نفسي حاضرا حتى راجعتها في سن 30
من الكلاسيكيات الواجب قراءتها في سن مبكرة. .في سن الجمال والشباب..و من افضل مائة رواية باللغة الإنجليزية
لا يخطر على بالك للحظة واحدة ان كلنا دوريان جراي..ابدا ..نعم كل منا لديه دولابه المغلق على ما ستره الله عليه..لكننا نحمل اخطاءنا في قلوبنا و عقولنا ..لا مهرب في وجود الضمير
اختلف انا مع اوسكاروايلد في حياته ومبادئه واسلوبه بل وكثير من اعماله ولكن مع دوريان الامر يختلف.. فهي مرآة جيدة لنقاط ضعف هامة بالنفس البشرية..ولم تكن لتحوز هذا القدر من الاهتمام لوكانت بطلتها إمرأة
May 18, 2018
Just a review of Picture of Dorian Gray: While certainly compelling in premise, I found the execution to be somewhat lacking. The novel contains many sections of overly gratuitous descriptions and largely inconsequential dialogue that I found to really slow the pace down. Whilst Wilde is an obviously eloquent writer, I do wonder if perhaps the book would have worked better as a short story more in the vein of Poe, embracing more of the gothic and horror elements that the book only really hints at apart from a single dramatic and violent scene.
May 13, 2019
This book is a classic for a reason. I don't know what that reason is, but that doesn't mean I'm saying there isn't one. This is a subjective opinion.
Dorian Gray was. . . what even? Why would anyone like this? Dorian is the most vain, emotionally volatile, irrational human being in existence, his friends are interesting, but it feels like Wilde uses them as mouthpieces to spout his philosophical jargon. I quit halfway through.
I didn't get through Lady Windermere's Fan either - it didn't feel like it was going anywhere.
The Importance of Being Earnest was actually really funny. I enjoyed that quite a bit.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol was impressive. I don't know how Wilde managed to keep up that structure for so long. Everything fit together so well, and it was a pleasure to read.
Overall, 2 stars for each piece I enjoyed.
Dorian Gray was. . . what even? Why would anyone like this? Dorian is the most vain, emotionally volatile, irrational human being in existence, his friends are interesting, but it feels like Wilde uses them as mouthpieces to spout his philosophical jargon. I quit halfway through.
I didn't get through Lady Windermere's Fan either - it didn't feel like it was going anywhere.
The Importance of Being Earnest was actually really funny. I enjoyed that quite a bit.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol was impressive. I don't know how Wilde managed to keep up that structure for so long. Everything fit together so well, and it was a pleasure to read.
Overall, 2 stars for each piece I enjoyed.
October 26, 2023
Every time I read this book I find something different to chomp on. A twisted story that takes from some classics and creates something new. I didn’t realize how much Wotton was used as a character to criticize Victorian way of life. The first time I read it I was more focused on his influence on Dorian Gray. Creepy book.
October 2, 2009
So you want to remain eternally young? This book will tell you an engrossing moralistic tale that paints the picture of where the deadly sin of vanity can take you. It will take you into a descent into a hell full of shadows where the light will never touch you.
This is a classic dark tale of intrigue. It is filled with the depths to which the human condition can sink. It is a page turner, but it may leave you feeling empty at the end. That is what it did for me. Nevertheless, it is a haunting book that is well worth reading. Oscar Wilde will speak from his grave throughout the centuries through this book.
As the author of a spiritually-themed book, I appreciated this book for the most unusual reasons. I am a former addict who knows what it is like to experience hell within life. The hopeful note within this book is that it will wake the reader up to taking responsibility for his or her own life. That is what I have had to do with my own. Thank God for books that can wake us up to that reality so that we do not have to sink into the abyss of nothingness.
Davis Aujourd'hui, author of "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude"
This is a classic dark tale of intrigue. It is filled with the depths to which the human condition can sink. It is a page turner, but it may leave you feeling empty at the end. That is what it did for me. Nevertheless, it is a haunting book that is well worth reading. Oscar Wilde will speak from his grave throughout the centuries through this book.
As the author of a spiritually-themed book, I appreciated this book for the most unusual reasons. I am a former addict who knows what it is like to experience hell within life. The hopeful note within this book is that it will wake the reader up to taking responsibility for his or her own life. That is what I have had to do with my own. Thank God for books that can wake us up to that reality so that we do not have to sink into the abyss of nothingness.
Davis Aujourd'hui, author of "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude"
Read
May 31, 2012This is the type of story that catches you off guard. There is a huge turn. You don't expect anything. You have big hopes in the beginning and then they slowly start to deteriorate as the story progresses. This is the type of story that I would recommend for someone who is slightly melancholic. It is a solemn read. There is much sadness. It causes you to search into the depths of your soul as the main character does. The narrator is third-person but has a deep look into the mind of the main character and others as well. This book contains an immense amount of conflicting concepts and world views. This is the main thing that interested me in reading this book. There is one character that has a great affect on another. His affect changes the entire course of the story. It is interesting to see the way one person can so deeply influence another who is so innocent. It is like an experiment except using the soul of a human. The opinions expressed in this story challenge the reader to think deeply about what he/she believes compared to what is presented in the story. This book did that for me. It really caused me to reflect on the influence that others have on me and the destruction of my own soul and my need for a Savior. This story is a clear view of the sins and secrets of the soul and its overpowering pain over a life that seems to have everything one can want from this world. It highlights human's desire for youth and everlasting life ending in death. You see a loss of power over ones passions and actions. The destruction deep down inside of you causes you to do horrendous things to protect yourself. You are alone. I also see a difference between the inner and outer life. What may look beautiful on the outside is really a deep dark sinful secret creeping in your subconscious eventually destroying you. There is no control when one tries to atone for his sins on his own. None. In conclusion, this story is not just entertainment and fiction, it is a challenge and forces oneself to realize his sins are a force that must be reckoned with
- Bridgett Cockrell
- Bridgett Cockrell
April 6, 2023
I like the character of lord Henry.
March 8, 2025
Mind blowing plot and gorgeously written...
June 12, 2024
[I only read TPoDG.]
August 21, 2024
#ThePictureOfDorianGray
I've wanted to read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde for a long time. Recently, one of my friends recommended it highly and so I thought I'll pick it up and read it.
Dorian Gray is a handsome young man. Or rather he is a beautiful young man. One day, his friend, who is an artist, paints Dorian Gray's portrait. It is very beautiful. Dorian Gray looks at it and feels that every year, he'll get older and his looks will fade, while the portrait will be the same, and he'll always be young in it. He wishes that he stays young and his portrait grows old. Miraculously it starts happening. How it comes about and what happens after that forms the rest of the story.
This is, of course, the simplified version of the story. The actual story is quite complex. It starts off well, there is lots of humour, Oscar Wilde shows off his genius as a dramatist and floods us with quotable quotes on every page – those cool, stylish one-liners that we love him for, they just keep on coming – but at some point, the story turns dark, and then it gets darker, and then becomes darkest. I loved the first part of the book more than the second part, but the second part was fascinating too. One of the fascinating characters in the story is Lord Henry Wotton, who has an unconventional and controversial view of life, and Oscar Wilde makes him speak most of the cool, stylish lines. Sometimes we agree with Lord Henry and sometimes we don't, but what he says is always fun and pleasurable to read – as they say, you can love him or you can hate him, but you can't ignore him. Another of my favourite characters in the story is Sibyl Vane, and her story was beautiful and heartbreaking to read. The ending of the story is scary like a horror novel, but I won't tell you what it is.
There was an interesting mention of something called 'Dacca gauzes' in the story, which went like this –
"the Dacca gauzes, that from their transparency are known in the East as 'woven air' and 'running water' and 'evening dew'."
I found this very fascinating because I read about this recently in Instagram, and it was so cool to read about it again in a 130-year old novel.
I loved 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', inspite of half of it being dark and sombre and heartbreaking. There were so many beautiful, thought-provoking passages throughout the book and my highlighting pen was working overtime. I want to share all my favourite passages here, but when I thought of doing that, I remembered what John Updike said once –
"My reviewing habit, hard to break, was to quote extensively; just as the impossibly ideal map would be the same size as the territory mapped, the ideal review would quote the book in its entirety, without comment."
Well, can't quote the whole book here and bore you 😄🙈 So, I'll just offer a few vintage Oscar Wilde one-liners here, all spoken by the fascinating Lord Henry. Hope you like them.
#Part1
"I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me."
"I can sympathize with everything, except suffering."
"To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies."
"Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing."
"I love acting. It is so much more real than life."
"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing."
#Part2
"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral – immoral from the scientific point of view."
"Why?"
"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion – these are the two things that govern us."
Have you read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'? What do you think about it?
#ThePlays
After reading Oscar Wilde's novel, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', I thought I'll read the plays of Oscar Wilde. I have two editions of his plays, the Bantam edition and the Oxford edition. Most of the plays are repeated in both. So I used the Bantam edition as my main read (probably because it had big font and was easy on the eye, and for some reason I love Bantam editions), and read one play from the Oxford edition which was not there in the Bantam.
There were five plays across the two editions.
🍁 Lady Windermere's Fan
🍁 Salome
🍁 An Ideal Husband
🍁 The Importance of Being Earnest
🍁 A Woman of No Importance
There was also one long poem,
🍁 The Ballad of Reading Gaol
I had read 'The Importance of Being Earnest' before, but all the other plays were new to me.
The plays were all fun to read. The characters were charming, the dialogue was cool and stylish, and Oscar Wilde's famous one-liners were there in every page. There was one main character in every play, who was cool and stylish who spoke most of those charming lines. Most of the times, this main character was a good person, sometimes this main character was a not-so-good person. I discovered that the most famous line by Oscar Wilde, "I can resist everything except temptation", was from 'Lady Windermere's Fan'. His another famous line, "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness", was from 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. In many of these plays, there is a kind of party or gathering at the beginning, and a new unknown person, usually a woman, turns up, and someone recognizes her, some secrets from the past come tumbling out, and then interesting things happen.
'The Importance of Being Earnest' is very different from the other plays because it is 100% comedy, there are no bad guys there. It made me remember one of the old famous Tamil movies 'Kaadhalikka Neramillai' ('No Time to Love'). It is a famous comedy and it has a legendary status among Tamil film fans. It seems to be very similar to 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. I'm surprised that I didn't notice the similarity before.
Dialogue plays a very important part in all the comic plays and sometimes it overshadows even the story. Peter Raby says this in his introduction to the Oxford edition when he is talking about 'The Importance of Being Earnest' –
"Wilde always began to create his plays from dialogue. Here he succeeds in subjugating plot to dialogue so conclusively that one feels literally anything could happen without affecting his characters' aplomb."
'Salome' was very different from the other four plays. It was originally written in French by Oscar Wilde, and it is about the Jewish princess Salome who wants John the Baptist's head delivered to her on a plate. This play is very serious, there is not even an ounce of comedy in it, and it is a heartbreaking story throughout. I didn't like it much.
'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' is a long poem and inspired by Oscar Wilde's time in prison. It is dark and heartbreaking, but some parts of it are very beautiful. My favourite part from the poem is at the beginning and goes like this –
"Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die."
There are atleast a couple of more plays that Oscar Wilde wrote at the beginning of his career which have not been included in these two collections. Their stories and style seem to be very different from his more famous plays, and they seem to have not done well commercially when they were performed. One of them, 'The Duchess of Padua', looks very interesting. I want to read that sometime.
There were beautiful introductions in both the editions I had, by Richard Ellmann (in the Bantam edition) and Peter Raby (in the Oxford edition). I loved Richard Ellmann's introduction more, because his tone was conversational and it was like speaking to a friend, but both the introductions were excellent.
I enjoyed reading Oscar Wilde's plays. It was 355 pages of pure pleasure 😊 If you haven't read them, I'd highly recommend them. Hope I can watch these plays performed at the theatre sometime. It will be fun, I think.
Have you read Oscar Wilde's plays? Which of his plays is your favourite? Which is your favourite Oscar Wilde quote? Have you seen performances of any of his plays?
I've wanted to read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde for a long time. Recently, one of my friends recommended it highly and so I thought I'll pick it up and read it.
Dorian Gray is a handsome young man. Or rather he is a beautiful young man. One day, his friend, who is an artist, paints Dorian Gray's portrait. It is very beautiful. Dorian Gray looks at it and feels that every year, he'll get older and his looks will fade, while the portrait will be the same, and he'll always be young in it. He wishes that he stays young and his portrait grows old. Miraculously it starts happening. How it comes about and what happens after that forms the rest of the story.
This is, of course, the simplified version of the story. The actual story is quite complex. It starts off well, there is lots of humour, Oscar Wilde shows off his genius as a dramatist and floods us with quotable quotes on every page – those cool, stylish one-liners that we love him for, they just keep on coming – but at some point, the story turns dark, and then it gets darker, and then becomes darkest. I loved the first part of the book more than the second part, but the second part was fascinating too. One of the fascinating characters in the story is Lord Henry Wotton, who has an unconventional and controversial view of life, and Oscar Wilde makes him speak most of the cool, stylish lines. Sometimes we agree with Lord Henry and sometimes we don't, but what he says is always fun and pleasurable to read – as they say, you can love him or you can hate him, but you can't ignore him. Another of my favourite characters in the story is Sibyl Vane, and her story was beautiful and heartbreaking to read. The ending of the story is scary like a horror novel, but I won't tell you what it is.
There was an interesting mention of something called 'Dacca gauzes' in the story, which went like this –
"the Dacca gauzes, that from their transparency are known in the East as 'woven air' and 'running water' and 'evening dew'."
I found this very fascinating because I read about this recently in Instagram, and it was so cool to read about it again in a 130-year old novel.
I loved 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', inspite of half of it being dark and sombre and heartbreaking. There were so many beautiful, thought-provoking passages throughout the book and my highlighting pen was working overtime. I want to share all my favourite passages here, but when I thought of doing that, I remembered what John Updike said once –
"My reviewing habit, hard to break, was to quote extensively; just as the impossibly ideal map would be the same size as the territory mapped, the ideal review would quote the book in its entirety, without comment."
Well, can't quote the whole book here and bore you 😄🙈 So, I'll just offer a few vintage Oscar Wilde one-liners here, all spoken by the fascinating Lord Henry. Hope you like them.
#Part1
"I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me."
"I can sympathize with everything, except suffering."
"To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies."
"Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing."
"I love acting. It is so much more real than life."
"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing."
#Part2
"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral – immoral from the scientific point of view."
"Why?"
"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion – these are the two things that govern us."
Have you read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'? What do you think about it?
#ThePlays
After reading Oscar Wilde's novel, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', I thought I'll read the plays of Oscar Wilde. I have two editions of his plays, the Bantam edition and the Oxford edition. Most of the plays are repeated in both. So I used the Bantam edition as my main read (probably because it had big font and was easy on the eye, and for some reason I love Bantam editions), and read one play from the Oxford edition which was not there in the Bantam.
There were five plays across the two editions.
🍁 Lady Windermere's Fan
🍁 Salome
🍁 An Ideal Husband
🍁 The Importance of Being Earnest
🍁 A Woman of No Importance
There was also one long poem,
🍁 The Ballad of Reading Gaol
I had read 'The Importance of Being Earnest' before, but all the other plays were new to me.
The plays were all fun to read. The characters were charming, the dialogue was cool and stylish, and Oscar Wilde's famous one-liners were there in every page. There was one main character in every play, who was cool and stylish who spoke most of those charming lines. Most of the times, this main character was a good person, sometimes this main character was a not-so-good person. I discovered that the most famous line by Oscar Wilde, "I can resist everything except temptation", was from 'Lady Windermere's Fan'. His another famous line, "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness", was from 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. In many of these plays, there is a kind of party or gathering at the beginning, and a new unknown person, usually a woman, turns up, and someone recognizes her, some secrets from the past come tumbling out, and then interesting things happen.
'The Importance of Being Earnest' is very different from the other plays because it is 100% comedy, there are no bad guys there. It made me remember one of the old famous Tamil movies 'Kaadhalikka Neramillai' ('No Time to Love'). It is a famous comedy and it has a legendary status among Tamil film fans. It seems to be very similar to 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. I'm surprised that I didn't notice the similarity before.
Dialogue plays a very important part in all the comic plays and sometimes it overshadows even the story. Peter Raby says this in his introduction to the Oxford edition when he is talking about 'The Importance of Being Earnest' –
"Wilde always began to create his plays from dialogue. Here he succeeds in subjugating plot to dialogue so conclusively that one feels literally anything could happen without affecting his characters' aplomb."
'Salome' was very different from the other four plays. It was originally written in French by Oscar Wilde, and it is about the Jewish princess Salome who wants John the Baptist's head delivered to her on a plate. This play is very serious, there is not even an ounce of comedy in it, and it is a heartbreaking story throughout. I didn't like it much.
'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' is a long poem and inspired by Oscar Wilde's time in prison. It is dark and heartbreaking, but some parts of it are very beautiful. My favourite part from the poem is at the beginning and goes like this –
"Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die."
There are atleast a couple of more plays that Oscar Wilde wrote at the beginning of his career which have not been included in these two collections. Their stories and style seem to be very different from his more famous plays, and they seem to have not done well commercially when they were performed. One of them, 'The Duchess of Padua', looks very interesting. I want to read that sometime.
There were beautiful introductions in both the editions I had, by Richard Ellmann (in the Bantam edition) and Peter Raby (in the Oxford edition). I loved Richard Ellmann's introduction more, because his tone was conversational and it was like speaking to a friend, but both the introductions were excellent.
I enjoyed reading Oscar Wilde's plays. It was 355 pages of pure pleasure 😊 If you haven't read them, I'd highly recommend them. Hope I can watch these plays performed at the theatre sometime. It will be fun, I think.
Have you read Oscar Wilde's plays? Which of his plays is your favourite? Which is your favourite Oscar Wilde quote? Have you seen performances of any of his plays?
April 3, 2012
Sometimes, a book and I cross paths with a serendipitous sense of timing. It's a magical, sublime thing when that happens because I love being dazzled with literary perfection and achingly personal relevance while pretending like my life really is a grand-scale movie script where things actually make sense in a deus ex machina sort of way. I like it when life validates every overly romantic notion I have about getting lost in a mighty good story.
And then I sometimes stumble upon a dud of a reading experience. There are countless factors at play when that happens: I pick up a book right before I hit a reading slump; something starts off with oodles of promise only to peter out into disappointment; I realize that I'm simply not in the mood for a novel I've already started and insist on plowing through it anyway; life keeps encroaching on my reading time; my expectations and the book's reality are not even close to being in sync. Sometimes, there's a combination of things telling me that I'd probably like a story much more had I picked it up at any other time than the one I chose.
My long-overdue first tango with Oscar Wilde happened at a time when I was juggling an especially busy time at work while also moving into my first house. I thought that this would be a tasty treat to savor between proofreading marathons and hauling everything that my husband and I have amassed during the past five years across this state's biggest county (the fact that our move coincided with the Great Excedrin Recall of 2012 didn't help matters, but that's an entirely different set of complaints). It shouldn't have taken me nearly a month to plod through 200 pages but I also should've been able to take that as an indication to maaaaaybe try again some other time.
Wilde was a brilliant writer, let's get that straight right now. For all the things about this tale that left me lukewarm, the quality of the writing is BY FAR its best feature. Wilde had a hell of a knack for doling out some of the most biting, wittiest aphorisms I've ever encountered in any medium. He could turn some truly lovely phrases, which is how I was able to stomach an entire chapter about the protagonist's fleeting but fashionable obsessions with things like perfumes and jewels and Roman Catholicism. But Wilde struck me as a much more adept writer than storyteller; while I make no secret of my preference for good writing over an engaging plot, there are certainly going to be some exceptions. I can only read so much about endless dinner parties that essentially serve as vehicles for droll back-and-forths between characters who clearly can't get enough of hearing themselves talk and talk and talk and talk.
It's the starting and stopping of the plot that killed me. I needed more doing and less pontificating. The characters were always exclaiming and crying out and ejaculating over their responses to each other instead of taking action. I get that a lot of their ideas and oh-so-clever observations about general humanity and specific morality were worth talking about, sure. And there was enough symbolism and expertly executed literary elements to shake a really big stick at, which was neat.
But I guess being a modern-day reader coming to a fin-de-siècle novel is bound to create some problems, especially when I'm approaching the book with a load of faulty expectations about what it'll offer me. The Lovecraftian flavor of the novel's beginning and the turbo-gothic tale I was expecting did a great disservice to what I'm sure I would have been a much more palatable reading experience had I only gotten the timing a little better.
Maybe I'll try this again at a less chaotic time. Or maybe I'll cozy up to one of the plays in this collection. Because.... seriously. The writing. It is so good.
And then I sometimes stumble upon a dud of a reading experience. There are countless factors at play when that happens: I pick up a book right before I hit a reading slump; something starts off with oodles of promise only to peter out into disappointment; I realize that I'm simply not in the mood for a novel I've already started and insist on plowing through it anyway; life keeps encroaching on my reading time; my expectations and the book's reality are not even close to being in sync. Sometimes, there's a combination of things telling me that I'd probably like a story much more had I picked it up at any other time than the one I chose.
My long-overdue first tango with Oscar Wilde happened at a time when I was juggling an especially busy time at work while also moving into my first house. I thought that this would be a tasty treat to savor between proofreading marathons and hauling everything that my husband and I have amassed during the past five years across this state's biggest county (the fact that our move coincided with the Great Excedrin Recall of 2012 didn't help matters, but that's an entirely different set of complaints). It shouldn't have taken me nearly a month to plod through 200 pages but I also should've been able to take that as an indication to maaaaaybe try again some other time.
Wilde was a brilliant writer, let's get that straight right now. For all the things about this tale that left me lukewarm, the quality of the writing is BY FAR its best feature. Wilde had a hell of a knack for doling out some of the most biting, wittiest aphorisms I've ever encountered in any medium. He could turn some truly lovely phrases, which is how I was able to stomach an entire chapter about the protagonist's fleeting but fashionable obsessions with things like perfumes and jewels and Roman Catholicism. But Wilde struck me as a much more adept writer than storyteller; while I make no secret of my preference for good writing over an engaging plot, there are certainly going to be some exceptions. I can only read so much about endless dinner parties that essentially serve as vehicles for droll back-and-forths between characters who clearly can't get enough of hearing themselves talk and talk and talk and talk.
It's the starting and stopping of the plot that killed me. I needed more doing and less pontificating. The characters were always exclaiming and crying out and ejaculating over their responses to each other instead of taking action. I get that a lot of their ideas and oh-so-clever observations about general humanity and specific morality were worth talking about, sure. And there was enough symbolism and expertly executed literary elements to shake a really big stick at, which was neat.
But I guess being a modern-day reader coming to a fin-de-siècle novel is bound to create some problems, especially when I'm approaching the book with a load of faulty expectations about what it'll offer me. The Lovecraftian flavor of the novel's beginning and the turbo-gothic tale I was expecting did a great disservice to what I'm sure I would have been a much more palatable reading experience had I only gotten the timing a little better.
Maybe I'll try this again at a less chaotic time. Or maybe I'll cozy up to one of the plays in this collection. Because.... seriously. The writing. It is so good.
February 16, 2009
The literary content of the book was awesome. very introspective. the whole book is about dorian gray finding out how horrible of a person he is. the reason i give this book a three is because I found it quite boring. there really was never a story. My husband loves this book and thinks it is genius. I on the other hand am glad I read it but, it just had too many chapters where it just talks about how dorian gray like jewelry or music. It was just all over the place and didn't keep me intirgued through the whole thing. there were times I just wanted to skip chapters. The story it did have was very good I just thougt it could use a lot less of oscar wilde's soap box speeches in between the juicy stuff. this kind of book just wasn't for me.
April 3, 2016
I've wanted to read The Picture of Dorian Gray since forever, and finally opted to do so along with some of Oscar Wilde's other writings. TPoDG really is a finely crafted tale, and even though I already knew the basic premise it was still a delight to enjoy the writing of Oscar Wilde. I'll admit its actually the only tale I've read so far, but on its own is enough to earn the book five stars.
March 14, 2016
It is the very simple story of how arrogance could end up with going down and failed to keep humanly qualities.
October 17, 2024
Only read “the picture of Dorian Gray”. Plot was a bit all-over-the-place, but the language was sublime. Here are some lines I thought were thought-provoking and beautiful:
“If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart” (p.185)
“The only horrible thing in the world is ennui. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness” (p.175)
“Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity” (p.170)
“Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates… art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him” (p.101)
“A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them” (p.95)
“The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died” (p.91)
“There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, such as romance, passion, and love” (p.90)
“There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love” (p.78)
“Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces, and always prevent us from carrying them out” (p.70)
“When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window” (p.61) <3
“They say when good Americans die they go to Paris” (p.36)
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul” (p.21)
“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world” (p.12)
Also shout-out to the closeted victorian man Lord Henry who definitely had the hots for Dorian. You ain’t fooling no one mister
“If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart” (p.185)
“The only horrible thing in the world is ennui. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness” (p.175)
“Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity” (p.170)
“Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates… art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him” (p.101)
“A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them” (p.95)
“The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died” (p.91)
“There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, such as romance, passion, and love” (p.90)
“There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love” (p.78)
“Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces, and always prevent us from carrying them out” (p.70)
“When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window” (p.61) <3
“They say when good Americans die they go to Paris” (p.36)
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul” (p.21)
“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world” (p.12)
Also shout-out to the closeted victorian man Lord Henry who definitely had the hots for Dorian. You ain’t fooling no one mister
March 12, 2025
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a beautiful intriguing piece of art that has reignited my love for literature. Wonderful is all that comes to mind at the moment. There are so many moments and quotes that I will refer to for years to come.
This book calls into question society and its idealistic views surrounding beauty. Beauty seems to be equivalent to innocence, holiness, and virtues. This is why Dorian’s actions are rarely questioned as time continues since certainly those actions would physically change and weigh on a person.
Every character in this book is so important when looking into the different perspectives. This idea that living life for pleasure is the proper way to live, only to see the wickedness that grows and festers within, while also challenging how much society is willing to over look in the face of beauty. Our actions impact others, and corruption spreads like a virus, and influence is a dangerous thing.
Henry loves the novelty in young Dorian’s youth and beauty and insists on corrupting it despite Basils plea to stay away. I loved how we met Henry when he seems to know it all, but nearly twenty years later after his life has drastically changed and admits such to Dorian.
Basil represents love and art and despite our best efforts we can never save someone who doesn’t care to save themselves. I wish he had a happier ending.
Sybil Vane, she represents everything about youth and beauty that Dorian would never experience. When we are young like Sybil we have the potential and energy to be anything we want, which is why she was such an amazing actress with the ability to throw herself completely into the rolls. Once she no longer held the novelty that intrigued Dorian he found that he could not love her. She was perhaps the great tragedy in this story.
Dorian is rather complex despite his vanity and calls into question what would a person do if no one else would know of their actions. He strives for redemption towards the end of the book, but while we might have our future to create whatever life we desire, we will always be haunted by the ghosts of our past. The ending was rather perfect in my opinion as well, no one escapes this life unharmed by it.
This book calls into question society and its idealistic views surrounding beauty. Beauty seems to be equivalent to innocence, holiness, and virtues. This is why Dorian’s actions are rarely questioned as time continues since certainly those actions would physically change and weigh on a person.
Every character in this book is so important when looking into the different perspectives. This idea that living life for pleasure is the proper way to live, only to see the wickedness that grows and festers within, while also challenging how much society is willing to over look in the face of beauty. Our actions impact others, and corruption spreads like a virus, and influence is a dangerous thing.
Henry loves the novelty in young Dorian’s youth and beauty and insists on corrupting it despite Basils plea to stay away. I loved how we met Henry when he seems to know it all, but nearly twenty years later after his life has drastically changed and admits such to Dorian.
Basil represents love and art and despite our best efforts we can never save someone who doesn’t care to save themselves. I wish he had a happier ending.
Sybil Vane, she represents everything about youth and beauty that Dorian would never experience. When we are young like Sybil we have the potential and energy to be anything we want, which is why she was such an amazing actress with the ability to throw herself completely into the rolls. Once she no longer held the novelty that intrigued Dorian he found that he could not love her. She was perhaps the great tragedy in this story.
Dorian is rather complex despite his vanity and calls into question what would a person do if no one else would know of their actions. He strives for redemption towards the end of the book, but while we might have our future to create whatever life we desire, we will always be haunted by the ghosts of our past. The ending was rather perfect in my opinion as well, no one escapes this life unharmed by it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 20, 2022
My problem with reviewing this book is that it took me a couple of weeks to get through it, not because it was hard going or I wasn't enjoying it but just there was a lot of distractions during the time. This spoiled for me the forward narrative of the book but having said that I did still enjoy it. Would you sell your soul to keep the beauty of your youth? This is what Dorian Gray does but his sins are shown in the painting done of him whilst young - a reversal of what normally happens. The concept of sin and corruption of the soul are two strong themes that don't tend to appear in more modern novels but this is late Victorian. Dorian lives a double life, one of debachery and sin but with a veneer or respectability in the society he lives in. Whilst a simple story this book gives the reader a lot to think about - and was almost written for two audiences, the people in the "know" (homosexuals) and the rest of society who would be shocked and unnerved by the live Dorian Gray leads. I read this book because it is apparently a lot of people's favourite book. For me I enjoyed it but didn't love it with a passion.
June 17, 2022
Okay hear me out I know the rating is low. A full month. It took me a full month to read this 210 page book. That hasn’t happened in forever, but there is just something about DG that felt so hard for me to get through. Even though I fully enjoyed and appreciated the writing style of Oscar Wilde, I felt like the story was going on forever?? The experience of reading this classic was just not doing it for me. Towards the midway point I was feeling like it was a required reading for school and couldn’t take the pages describing the different types of artwork Dorian collected. The way I had to finish off reading this was by using an audiobook I found on youtube to help me stay engaged and fight the urge to fall asleep while reading it. DONT GET ME WRONG THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD CONTENT IN HERE!! But maybe because I chose to read at the wrong time I just ended up not feeling the same enthusiasm as I once had for it. The picture of dorian mid. 3 stars
March 7, 2022
Dorian Gray is worth five stars alone, everything else is a nice bonus!
A charming and eccentric young man named Dorian Gray falls into the temptation of eternal youth and beauty. He is swept into a social whirlwind when he journeys to London by the charismatic Henry Wotton who introduces him to the new and exotic pleasures of the city. Henry then introduces Dorian to his artistic friend Basil Hallward who paints a portrait of Dorian to capture the eternal essence of his unmatched beauty and grace. When the portrait is unveiled, Dorian vows that he would sacrifice his soul to remain as he is in the picture, no matter how deep he may fall to debauchery, sin and the wrath of old age.
We all have an image we would like to preserve of ourselves, but it is our actions that ultimately define who we are and who we are doomed to become. If a portrait could reflect your soul, would it reflect your physical body, or would it show you something hideous and otherworldly? After all, sin and corruption often hides behind beautiful faces. How different would the world be if we could see the nature of one's soul on display for everyone to see?
Dorian Gray is an artful and poetic masterpiece, dripping with philosophy and moral ambiguity. It's a venture into enjoying the best and worst that life has to offer. Art can be found in anything if one seeks to find it, and sometimes people find art in things that can only be described as evil.
A charming and eccentric young man named Dorian Gray falls into the temptation of eternal youth and beauty. He is swept into a social whirlwind when he journeys to London by the charismatic Henry Wotton who introduces him to the new and exotic pleasures of the city. Henry then introduces Dorian to his artistic friend Basil Hallward who paints a portrait of Dorian to capture the eternal essence of his unmatched beauty and grace. When the portrait is unveiled, Dorian vows that he would sacrifice his soul to remain as he is in the picture, no matter how deep he may fall to debauchery, sin and the wrath of old age.
We all have an image we would like to preserve of ourselves, but it is our actions that ultimately define who we are and who we are doomed to become. If a portrait could reflect your soul, would it reflect your physical body, or would it show you something hideous and otherworldly? After all, sin and corruption often hides behind beautiful faces. How different would the world be if we could see the nature of one's soul on display for everyone to see?
Dorian Gray is an artful and poetic masterpiece, dripping with philosophy and moral ambiguity. It's a venture into enjoying the best and worst that life has to offer. Art can be found in anything if one seeks to find it, and sometimes people find art in things that can only be described as evil.
April 5, 2019
So many reviews exist on Goodreads that I don’t have anything fresh to add. Suffice to say that Wilde’s novella is a fascinating look at the psychology of self-love and self-loathing. I often wish that I could come up with as many clever quips and comments as Wilde.
This novella does not age like the attic-locked portrait. Read it for the joy of the language and the insight into the horror and depths that humans too often find within their own souls.
This novella does not age like the attic-locked portrait. Read it for the joy of the language and the insight into the horror and depths that humans too often find within their own souls.
December 10, 2021
I’ve only read The picture of Dorian Gray and The importance of being Ernest from this book. The rest, I have yet to read. These two are diverse in their stories but both share the same effect it had on me - I enjoyed it immensely.
October 1, 2022
So good! An absolute classic! Amazing writing and a captivating story.
May 3, 2024
Gorgeous and lovely in every way!
November 9, 2024
(Mid btw)
June 19, 2025
one of the best classics I have read.
August 10, 2025
chapter 11 SUUCCKEEEDDD
December 28, 2023
Each time I reread it, I hope to like it more...but I don't. It's a nice little horror story, but I prefer Wilde's comedy.
November 5, 2025
Cautionary tale about how postmodern nihilism pushes people toward hedonism under the guise of the intellectual freedom and Ascension from "oppressive" past ideas.
aka Men vs. Accountability.
aka Men vs. Accountability.
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