Amazon.com
A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."
As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."
Book Description
Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparkling prose to The Picture of Dorian Gray, his dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged—petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral—while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying, enchanting, obsessing, even corrupting readers for more than a hundred years.
Taking the reader in and out of London drawing rooms, to the heights of aestheticism, and to the depths of decadence, The Picture of Dorian Gray is not only a melodrama about moral corruption. Laced with bon mots and vivid depictions of upper-class refinement, it is also a fascinating look at the milieu of Wilde’s fin-de-siècle world and a manifesto of the creed “Art for Art’s Sake.”
The ever-quotable Wilde, who once delighted London with his scintillating plays, scandalized readers with this, his only novel. Upon publication, Dorian was condemned as dangerous, poisonous, stupid, vulgar, and immoral, and Wilde as a “driveling pedant.” The novel, in fact, was used against Wilde at his much-publicized trials for “gross indecency,” which led to his imprisonment and exile on the European continent. Even so, The Picture of Dorian Gray firmly established Wilde as one of the great voices of the Aesthetic movement, and endures as a classic that is as timeless as its hero.
Download Description
Dorian Gray has just had his portrait painted. It is a perfect likeness of the quite extraordinary beautiful young man, and it prompts him to make a mad wish for eternal youth. In the years to come, he devotes his public life to and aestheticism-and his private one to decadence and debauchery.
Customer Reviews:
The American Psycho of a bygone era?.......2007-09-26
Having only recently read American Psycho, I couldn't help but think back to The Picture of Dorian Gray. Placed within the context of its time, I feel certain that this book would have been the American Psycho of its day. What a great pity that Oscar Wilde only wrote this one novel! This compelling story has haunted me since I first saw it on film as a young man (the book is better of course). I've given copies of the novel to many friends, and I can heartily recommend it as a great read to anyone.
Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
I would imagine that there is not a very large chance you would find
this book in the waiting room of any plastic surgeon's office. An
example of a story that suggests be careful of what you wish for. A
young man makes a deal to keep himself young and youthful looking.
Unfortunately there is a secret associated with this that is hard to
hide.
A Classic Victorian Gothic.......2007-08-29
What can capture the soul of a man?
Is there a devil's deal to be made at the crossroad?
Dorian Gray shows that great physical beauty can be a lie. Oscar Wilde in
his introductory poetry says: Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are cultivated."
One can't say that this novel is beautiful,
but there is an element of eternal truth that even in ugliness has great virtue.
Great Book!.......2007-08-23
This story is amazing, Dorian Gray keeps you in the book.
I read this book in high school and now I decided to buy it and read it again.
Not all that I expected..........2007-07-30
This novel is one which everyone has heard of and many are compelled to read it as part of school curriculum. I never did, but thought I would give it a try as I really enjoy dry British wit and intelligent prose. Beyond that, I wasn't sure what else I was expecting, but for my tastes, I didn't end up entirely satisfied.
The opening 10 or 20 pages insinuated themselves into my imagination and I felt that I would be entertained by the main characters throughout the rest of the novel. The detailed descriptions of the lovely country setting and extravagant flowers gives one an impression of decadence and a high society jadedness that I somehow expected from Oscar Wilde, having read none of his previous work. Unfortunately, the remainder of the novel didn't hold as much pleasure for me.
Dorian Grey is a relatively uninteresting central character who is but a blank canvas for Lord Henry to experiment upon; Dorian's own thoughts and musings are not so compelling in and of themselves and yet we are treated to quite a few pages of them throughout. Lord Henry himself is an interesting character whose mean-spiritedness, which approaches evil in some instances, is obscured by his verbose bantering on half-baked, jaundiced observations on Victorian life. These also consume considerable paper stock, and as witty as his musings start out (his thoughts on marriage were particularly humorous to me), they start to run together and become somewhat of a misshapen lump through which I felt I was slogging at times.
Anyway, the story is relatively well known to most at this point, regardless of whether you have read the book in question or not. It progresses more or less as one might assume, which is not entirely a bad thing (I would not classify this tale as a mystery or as a horror novel, a genre to which I see it is sometimes curiously attributed). Oscar Wilde is definitely saying something here, and there seem to be many elements of allegory contained within the story. I have read that he saw parts of himself within all three of the main characters, and they do seem to represent different facets of a single personality. Unfortunately these same characters are hamstrung by this very fact, as they each seem only part of a personality, part of a character, and not well rounded or believable in their motivations or actions.
This is the first Oscar Wilde I have attempted to read, and I won't say it is my last, but there are classics of English literature which are as well written, more engrossing, and, in the end, more memorable, at least to this reader ("Silas Marner" comes to mind as a fine book I only just recently read for the first time as well).
So, overall, about 3 stars from me. In my opinion it poses some interesting questions, sparkles in a few spots, and held my attention for a few hours, but it's not something I would return to or recommend for pleasurable reading.
As a side note, I am somewhat surprised by the criticisms of the homoerotic nature of the relationships portrayed within the novel. Wilde portrayed the passionate nature of what amounts to a love triangle in a very effective (if slightly florid) way, and, as has been noted before, the relationships between the men seem more genuine and believable than those involving the fairer sex. Maybe this type of undertone would be out of place in a Hemingway novel but good grief it's Oscar Wilde! Scratch beneath the surface and read about where this man was coming from and the times in which he lived and worked.
Book Description
ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED
BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP
The classic Gothic tale of horror that explores the pleasures and dangers of a life of decadence.
EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:
• A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
• A chronology of the author's life and work
• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
• An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
• Detailed explanatory notes
• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON
Customer Reviews:
great book, minor flaws.......2006-11-07
First off, for the audience looking to read this book after viewing the character from the movie LXG, know that the characteristics of Dorian are no as they were in the movie. Dorian does not die when he looks at his portrait; in fact his observation of the changes in his picture is one of the main elements of the story. Basil, an artist that is obsessed with the beauty of one man, Dorian, paints a portrait so beautiful that the subject is pained by the fact that the portrait's beauty will outlast that of his mortal body, and he wishes that this formula could be reversed, with the portrait aging in his place. He gets his wish, but at what price? Dorian, now free from the bounds of mortality, is no longer afraid to sin, since there he thinks that nothing can happen to him. But his behavior was not all due to his immortality; it was also due to the fact that the negative influence from Lord Henry corrupted his pure soul. The fact that he was able to keep his beauty but not able to keep his soul shows that judgment based on appearance is not only wrong, but inaccurate. This book is recommended, but not to the highest extent. The story picks up quickly, as it must with such a limited amount of pages. One of the only flaws in this book is chapter 11, the long, unwanted pause. A classic nonetheless, one that should no be overlooked.
The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Essential Classic.......2006-11-05
The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of the greatest books of our time. It is over one hundred years old, but has aged gracefully and is still easily understood and as relevant to matters of life now as it was when it was first published. Though there have been many imitations of it and many film depictions of it, none of them do justice to the real thing. This timeless classic follows the development of a teenager, Dorian Gray, into manhood as the people that he calls his friends corrupt his soul. This is symbolized in a portrait that Gray hides, which was painted by the man who was perhaps his only good-hearted friend, Basil, who later met his untimely demise. Along with the exceptional plot and surprising twist at the end comes the message that Oscar Wilde cunningly imparts to the reader: One must be master of oneself because outside influences often disfigure one down to the deepest part of their soul. On top of all this, the book is also simply well written and entertaining. It is enjoyable because Wilde uses his mastery of everything from satire to suspense to convey his message and an extraordinarily compelling plot to the reader. You should read this book if you are looking for new knowledge, literature with a deep message, or simply a good time. This edition is especially helpful because it has a glossary for the meanings of some older words and supplementary reading written by Oscar Wilde.
A favorite.......2006-05-26
This book is one of my favorites. I love The Picture of Dorian Gray, and also was amazed by "The Ballad of Reading Gaul"
Wonderful collection of brilliant writing.......2006-05-16
This is the version I read while first discovering the many talents of Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray is captivating, though the actual storyline is not intricate. The descriptions are extraordinary and left me wondering why he hadn't written more novels? Very short, very effective. It is inconcievable to think that Wilde was denounced for this book being immoral as it is really quite moral, considering the consequences of Dorian's behaviour. (He once commented that there never was an immoral or moral book, simply badly written or well-written) For insight into Oscar Wilde's very colourful life, pick up a copy of Richard Elmann's biography; it is not a happy read but very readable nonetheless.
An interesting story.......2005-11-15
The beginning and end of this book were fairly interesting, we get to see Dorian Gray first as a young man (a child essentially) and how he was poked and prodded into becoming the man we see at the end of the book. The middle is somewhat lacking, and I completely lost interest for almost a month before picking the book back up and finishing the story.
The story is essentially that of a man who sells his soul for something petty, namely, beauty and about the downfall of not only the main character but also those whom he encounters in his life. It is an interesting story, but I feel that the story could have been written better and become somewhat of a mystery novel. Instead of revealing Dorian's secret at the moment he discovers it, it would have been fun to leave the reader guessing as to why Dorain was so afraid to let others see the great picture of himself, and perhaps delve into the inner turmoil of Dorian a bit more before the conclusion.
I have only read the story once, but in future readings I'm sure this story will become more intriguing.
Book Description
About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the
Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.
Customer Reviews:
I would not order again--missing five pages........2007-10-03
On the strength of the first edition, I ordered the second edition for a course. The second edition is missing five pages from Chapter III of the 1890 version of the novel.
I have tried contacting Norton. Their feedback page did not work.
"Beauty is a form of Genius.".......2006-10-06
Oscar Wilde was one of the foremost representatives of Aestheticism, a movement based on the notion that art exists for no other purpose than its existence itself ("l'art pour l'art"), not for the purpose of social and moral enlightenment. Born in Dublin and a graduate of Oxford's Magdalen College, he initially worked primarily as a journalist, editor and lecturer, but gradually turned to writing and produced his most acclaimed works in the six-year span from 1890 to 1895, roughly coinciding with the period of his romantic involvement with Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, sixteen years his junior. Douglas's strained relationship with his father, John Sholto Douglas, Marquees of Queensberry, eventually resulted in a series of confrontations between Wilde and the Marquees, which first led to a libel suit brought by Wilde against his lover's father (who had openly accused Wilde of "posing as a sodomite" and threatened to disown his son if he didn't give up his acquaintance with the writer) and subsequently to two criminal trials against Wilde for "gross indecencies," based on a law generally interpreted to prohibit homosexual relationships. Sentenced to a two-year term of "hard labor" in Reading Gaol, Wilde emerged from prison in 1897 a spiritually, physically and financially broken man and, unable to continue living in England or Ireland, after three years' wanderings throughout Europe died in 1900 of cerebral meningitis, barely 46 years old.
"The Picture of Dorian Gray," Wilde's only novel besides seven plays as well as several works of short fiction, poetry, nonfiction and two fairy tale collections originally written for his two sons, is critical to an understanding of Wilde's body of work and his personality primarily for two reasons: First, because it constitutes one of his earliest fully accomplished formulations of Aestheticism, and secondly because of its undeniable undercurrent of homoeroticism; an inclination which, after a six-year marriage widely thought to initially have been a true love match, Wilde had begun to explore more openly around the time of the novel's creation (1890). The story's title character is an exceptionally handsome young man who, both in the eyes of the artist tasked to paint his portrait, Basil Hallward, and in those of their somewhat older friend Lord Henry Wotton, epitomizes perfect beauty and is coveted by both men for that very reason. Seduced by hedonistic Lord Henry into believing that beauty can literally justify anything, including any act of immorality, Dorian sells his soul for maintaining his beautiful appearance, letting his portrait age in his stead. (In that, his character resembles Goethe's and Marlowe's Faust.) He then quickly turns from an innocent youth into a cruel and calculating man whom society, in its shallow adherence to appearances, nonetheless never associates with any of the results of his cruelty, never looking beyond the surface of his handsome exterior and assuming that a man so beautiful must necessarily also be good. Ultimately it is Dorian himself who brings about his own downfall when he is no longer able to face the manifestation of his evilness in Basil Hallward's picture.
Upon its initial publication in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was widely scorned as immoral by a public neither familiar with nor particularly open to the concepts of Aestheticism and its mockery of middle class morality, and repulsed by the thinly veiled homoerotic relationship of the novel's protagonists. Wilde republished the work the following year, adding a preface designed to explain his views on art. Yet, it was that preface which, along with several of his other publications and his written exchanges with Lord Alfred Douglas, ultimately would play a devastating role in his trials, where Queensberry's attorney would come to use an excerpt from that very preface - "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written" - to extract from Wilde statements to the effect that any book inspiring a sense of beauty (including, as implied in the attorney's question, an "immoral" book, if "The Picture of Dorian Gray" could be qualified as such) was well-written and therefore commendable; that only Philistines, brutes and illiterates - whose views on art he considered invariably stupid and for which he therefore didn't "care twopence" - could consider this novel "perverted," and that the majority of the reading public would probably not be able to draw a proper distinction between a good and a bad book. It was testimony such as this, as well as the impending confrontation with a number of male witnesses ready to testify as to the nature of their relationship with Wilde, that not only caused the author's attorney to convince his client to drop the libel suit against Queensberry but also opened the door for Wilde's own subsequent prosecution.
If "The Picture of Dorian Gray" has a central theme besides the supremacy of beauty and the depiction of a society primarily interested in appearances, it is a call for individuality: Dorian's cruelty is brought out only after he allows himself to be influenced by Lord Henry's equally seductive and cynical hedonism; and similarly, Basil Hallward's blind idolizing of Dorian eventually proves fatal for the painter. - Wilde's only novel is one of the first and most poignant expressions of his own individualism; but unlike his protagonist, who ultimately pays a ghastly prize for selling his soul and giving up his individuality, Wilde paid as high a price for maintaining his. Like Dorian, he knew that "[e]ach of us has Heaven and Hell in him," and although this novel's preface ends with the provocative statement that "[a]ll art is quite useless," it was the very fact that Wilde put his entire being into his art that ultimately destroyed him. But like beauty, which is finally restored to perfection in Dorian Gray's portrait, Wilde's works have stood the test of time; and not merely for their countless, pricelessly witty epigrams. They're as well worth a read as ever.
Amazon.com
"Oh! In what a wild hour of madness he had killed his friend! How ghastly the mere memory of the scene! He saw it all again. Each hideous detail came back to him with added horror. Out of the black cave of time, terrible and swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin." In their ideal of an exquisitely sensitive temperament that thrills to fine shadings in sensation, the principles of the aesthetic (or "decadent") movement are well suited to the tale of terror. No story exemplifies this better than Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. The sparkling wit and zest for life of Wilde's characters combine with cold-blooded acts of horror to generate a deliciously twisted sense of elegance and evil, civilization and degradation. Oscar Wilde, like Edgar Allan Poe, shows us that what we find loathsome and frightening can also be beautiful.
Book Description
LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME
THE HAPPY PRINCE
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANTA
In Dorian Gray, Wilde's full-length novel, a fashionable young man sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Also included in the volume are three of the Irish master storyteller's short works.
Customer Reviews:
genius.......2007-03-09
there is nothing about this novel i didn't enjoy. oscar wilde is nothing short of a genius.
a classic novel.......2006-07-04
a timeless novel about the rights of the individual and our own mortality.
"For Youth is the One Thing Worth Having".......2006-06-05
"How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June...If it were only the other way! If it where I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that-for that-I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my own soul for that!"
Meet Dorian Gray. He has the perfect look. He shines with such youth and beauty that he amazes everyone he comes in contact with. According to Lord Henry Wotton, however, he does not fully realize what he has. When their mutual friend, Basil Hallward, a painter, decides to paint a portrait of Dorian, he ends up capturing that youth and beauty almost perfectly in his painting. Dorian is mezmerized by it. After listening to Lord Henry's philosophy about how youth and good looks are more important than being good-hearted, Dorian claims he would do anything to let the picture grow old and decay, while he will stay young and beautiful for the rest of his life.
It is only a downward spiral for Dorian after that. He continues to believe in the ways of Lord Henry. His face remains perfect and unlined as he commits sin after sin. The only way anyone would have known Dorian's true colors would be to take a look at his portrait; for his face on the portrait would take on the age lines and the sinister look that Dorian truly should bare in the flesh. The sight of his picture horrifies Dorian so deeply that he locks it up, and would not let anyone look at it. Dorian himself is too afraid to look at it. However, this does not stop Dorian from listening to Lord Henry and believing the same way he does.
Overall, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a great novel. The wit, humor, horror, and philosophy all comes together to make this story exactly what the description of the book says: timeless. The philosophical views of Lord Henry alone will make you question your own outlook on life. The plot is somewhat predictable, and so is the ending, but this doesn't keep Oscar Wilde's only full-length novel from being a great read. Also included in this book are his short stories, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, The Happy Prince, and The Birthday of the Infanta. Go ahead and pick this book up and start reading.
real good book .......2006-02-26
I had to read this book for english class i wasn't sure if it was going to be that good but i went and read it anyways. Ahead of the chapters that i was suppose to read in class but that didnt stop me. I really enjoyed this book Wilde is a very great writer. The only thing that bothered me was too many gay refrences but that made the book strong somehow. weird. As i got into the book i came to conclude that Dorian was nothing but a sponge sucking in everything he could know.
Dont read chapter 11 it would bore you to sleep. But the rest was good. What got me into this book was the fact that im an artist too and it made me think alot.
Pick it up it's worth a try.
Spectacular.......2005-05-02
A wonderful blend of morality and wit, set in the background of beautiful phrasing and truly enjoyable descriptions.
This book is very clever because it starts you off on par with Dorian - the main character - who then has his youthful innocence. Bit by bit, you find yourself fully strung on by the book's manipulative character who lures you in to the concept that everlasting beauty is more important than a beautiful soul.
Though predictable, the understanding the author demonstrates for the boy's psychological qualms, which have direct parallels to our lives at present, makes this a spiritually moving read.
The wit and mode he uses to drive his message home are second to none.
Humorous, witty, insightful, and evocative, it's a must read.
Average customer rating:
- Picture of Dorian Gray--Well Worth the Read
- Oscar Wilde is a Genius
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The Picture of Dorian Gray - Literary Touchstone
Oscar Wilde
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ASIN: 1580493939 |
Product Description
This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition⢠includes a glossary and readerâs notes to help the modern reader contend with Wildeâs many allusions and his complex approach to the human condition. Oscar Wildeâs only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, first appeared in 1891. Dorian Gray, a handsome young man, falls in with a group of âfriends,â whose amoral philosophies he finds quite appealing. After he has his portrait painted, his frivolity and general demeanor degenerate into wickedness, but only the portrait bears the effects of his descent into decadence and serves as a powerful symbol of Grayâs internal ruin. Dorian himself, however, remains as young and unspoiled as the day he first sat for the painting. Wildeâs exploration of life without limits or consequences shocked its late-Victorian audience and remains highly un- settling to modern readers. We, like Dorian, are forced to reconsider whether total freedom and absolute knowledge are really worth their costs.
Customer Reviews:
Picture of Dorian Gray--Well Worth the Read.......2007-06-26
I had heard speak of The Picture of Dorian Gray, but I must admit I did not expect the depth and clarity of thought, the utter honesty to be found in this short novel. It is worth reading. It is worth buying. I wish I had read this when I was younger. This is one book I will give to my children. If I could, I would make this a part of highschool litterature versus many other pieces we were given to read. It is indeed a classic.
Oscar Wilde is a Genius.......2006-12-28
After reading some of the contemporary reviews of this book, I was more than a little curious to see how awful this book really was. I was skeptical that it could be bad, because I'm very familiar with the wit of Wilde. As far as gothic novels go, this book ranks high in the Victorian era. Looking back from a historical perspective, I can see why the critics of the time disliked it. But from today's perspective, it is nothing short of brilliant. Wilde weaves a story like few authors could ever dream of doing, and of course his wit is played out beautifully in this book as well. full of quips and quirks, this book is a must read for anybody who has a love of sharp, intelligent writing.
Book Description
This authoritative edition was formerly published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Wilde's poetry and prose short stories, plays, critical dialogues and his only novel - to give the essence of his work and thinking. Oscar Wilde's dramatic private life has sometimes threatened to overshadow his great literary achievements. His talent was prodigious: the author of brilliant social comedies, fairy stories, critical dialogues, poems, and a novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. In addition to Dorian Gray, this volume represents all these genres, including such works as Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest, 'The Happy Prince', 'The Critic as Artist', and 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'.
Average customer rating:
- Another edition of the timeless book
- "Beauty is a form of Genius."
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
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ASIN: 1420925288 |
Customer Reviews:
Another edition of the timeless book.......2007-03-16
I ordered the book having read it already, just to have it for my library. It has a beautiful geometric pattern cover, which looks better on the computer screen than in real life. I prefer the hard-cover edition, but this one will make a nice, inexpensive, but meaningful gift.
"Beauty is a form of Genius.".......2006-09-09
Oscar Wilde was one of the foremost representatives of Aestheticism, a movement based on the notion that art exists for no other purpose than its existence itself ("l'art pour l'art"), not for the purpose of social and moral enlightenment. Born in Dublin and a graduate of Oxford's Magdalen College, he initially worked primarily as a journalist, editor and lecturer, but gradually turned to writing and produced his most acclaimed works in the six-year span from 1890 to 1895, roughly coinciding with the period of his romantic involvement with Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, sixteen years his junior. Douglas's strained relationship with his father, John Sholto Douglas, Marquees of Queensberry, eventually resulted in a series of confrontations between Wilde and the Marquees, which first led to a libel suit brought by Wilde against his lover's father (who had openly accused Wilde of "posing as a sodomite" and threatened to disown his son if he didn't give up his acquaintance with the writer) and subsequently to two criminal trials against Wilde for "gross indecencies," based on a law generally interpreted to prohibit homosexual relationships. Sentenced to a two-year term of "hard labor" in Reading Gaol, Wilde emerged from prison in 1897 a spiritually, physically and financially broken man and, unable to continue living in England or Ireland, after three years' wanderings throughout Europe died in 1900 of cerebral meningitis, barely 46 years old.
"The Picture of Dorian Gray," Wilde's only novel besides seven plays as well as several works of short fiction, poetry, nonfiction and two fairy tale collections originally written for his two sons, is critical to an understanding of Wilde's body of work and his personality primarily for two reasons: First, because it constitutes one of his earliest fully accomplished formulations of Aestheticism, and secondly because of its undeniable undercurrent of homoeroticism; an inclination which, after a six-year marriage widely thought to initially have been a true love match, Wilde had begun to explore more openly around the time of the novel's creation (1890). The story's title character is an exceptionally handsome young man who, both in the eyes of the artist tasked to paint his portrait, Basil Hallward, and in those of their somewhat older friend Lord Henry Wotton, epitomizes perfect beauty and is coveted by both men for that very reason. Seduced by hedonistic Lord Henry into believing that beauty can literally justify anything, including any act of immorality, Dorian sells his soul for maintaining his beautiful appearance, letting his portrait age in his stead. (In that, his character resembles Goethe's and Marlowe's Faust.) He then quickly turns from an innocent youth into a cruel and calculating man whom society, in its shallow adherence to appearances, nonetheless never associates with any of the results of his cruelty, never looking beyond the surface of his handsome exterior and assuming that a man so beautiful must necessarily also be good. Ultimately it is Dorian himself who brings about his own downfall when he is no longer able to face the manifestation of his evilness in Basil Hallward's picture.
Upon its initial publication in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was widely scorned as immoral by a public neither familiar with nor particularly open to the concepts of Aestheticism and its mockery of middle class morality, and repulsed by the thinly veiled homoerotic relationship of the novel's protagonists. Wilde republished the work the following year, adding a preface designed to explain his views on art. Yet, it was that preface which, along with several of his other publications and his written exchanges with Lord Alfred Douglas, ultimately would play a devastating role in his trials, where Queensberry's attorney would come to use an excerpt from that very preface -- "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written" -- to extract from Wilde statements to the effect that any book inspiring a sense of beauty (including, as implied in the attorney's question, an "immoral" book, if "The Picture of Dorian Gray" could be qualified as such) was well-written and therefore commendable; that only Philistines, brutes and illiterates -- whose views on art he considered invariably stupid and for which he therefore didn't "care twopence" -- could consider this novel "perverted," and that the majority of the reading public would probably not be able to draw a proper distinction between a good and a bad book. It was testimony such as this, as well as the impending confrontation with a number of male witnesses ready to testify as to the nature of their relationship with Wilde, that not only caused the author's attorney to convince his client to drop the libel suit against Queensberry but also opened the door for Wilde's own subsequent prosecution.
If "The Picture of Dorian Gray" has a central theme besides the supremacy of beauty and the depiction of a society primarily interested in appearances, it is a call for individuality: Dorian's cruelty is brought out only after he allows himself to be influenced by Lord Henry's equally seductive and cynical hedonism; and similarly, Basil Hallward's blind idolizing of Dorian eventually proves fatal for the painter. -- Wilde's only novel is one of the first and most poignant expressions of his own individualism; but unlike his protagonist, who ultimately pays a ghastly prize for selling his soul and giving up his individuality, Wilde paid as high a price for maintaining his. Like Dorian, he knew that "[e]ach of us has Heaven and Hell in him," and although this novel's preface ends with the provocative statement that "[a]ll art is quite useless," it was the very fact that Wilde put his entire being into his art that ultimately destroyed him. But like beauty, which is finally restored to perfection in Dorian Gray's portrait, Wilde's works have stood the test of time; and not merely for their countless, pricelessly witty epigrams. They're as well worth a read as ever.
Book Description
When The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in 1891, it evoked a tremendous amount of hostile criticism, in most part due to its immoral content. Oscar Wilde was identified with the "art for art's sake" movement of the nineteenth century which did not subordinate art to ethical instruction. However, this novel is indeed a morality tale about the hazards of egotistical self-indulgence.
"If it were I," exclaims Dorian, "who were always to be young and that picture that was to grow old . . . I would give my soul for that."
With that spoken, the tale of this young hero of amazing beauty, Dorian Gray, begins. His pact with evil allows his portrait to take on his many sins and degradations while his physical appearance remains youthful. Over the years as he becomes cruel and vicious, even murderous, Dorian's young and perfect body is no longer enough to salvage his deteriorating mind and morality. Will justice and good prevail?
Product Description
"Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray makes a Faustian bargain to sell his soul in exchange for eternal youth and beauty. Under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, where he is able to indulge his desires while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only Dorian's picture bears the traces of his decadence." "A knowing account of a secret life and an analysis of the darker side of Victorian society, The Picture of Dorian Gray offers a disturbing portrait of an individual coming face to face with the reality of his soul."--BOOK JACKET.
Customer Reviews:
the picture of Dorian Gray.......2007-01-15
great book hard to read because print was so small
Cavalier and irreverent statement on life and society.......2005-03-13
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fine piece of literature- a tale of excess, of corruption, of decay and of facades.
Basil Hallward, an artist, paints a picture of Dorian Gary, a handsome and vain young man, whom the artist is besotted with. Dorian Gray sells his soul for eternal youth, in a Faustian bargain, whereby all the age , decay corruption will show in the picture , while Grey's appearance will stay eternally young and fresh.
Encouraged by the hedonistic cynic Lord Henry Wotton, Gray embarks on a life of corruption, decadence and cruelty. Lord Henry is also the vehicle through which Wilde put down his many uniquely Wildesque epigrams into the novel, such as " Conscience and cowardice are really the same thing, Basil. Conscience is the trade name of the firm. That is all"; " Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love. It is the faithless who know love's tragedies"; "There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about" ; "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it." ; " It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But it is better to be good than to be ugly." And " As for the virtuous poor , one can pity them of course , but one cannot possibly admire them".
The bargain made by Gray can only lead to eventual destruction , and the novel is a statement by Wilde on humanity and society , in the cavalier and irreverent way that only Wilde could.
Average customer rating:
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The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oxford World's Classics)
Oscar Wilde
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0192807293 |
Book Description
'The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.' When Dorian Gray has his portrait painted, he is captivated by his own beauty. Tempted by his world-weary, decadent friend Lord Henry Wotton, he wishes to stay forever young, and pledges his very soul to keep his good looks. Set in fin-de-siecle London, the novel traces a path from the studio of painter Basil Hallward to the opium dens of the East End. As Dorian's slide into crime and cruelty progresses he stays magically youthful, while his beautiful portrait changes, revealing the hideous corruption of moral decay. Ever since its first publication in 1890 Wilde's only novel has remained the subject of critical controversy. Acclaimed by some as an instructive moral tale, it has been denounced by others for its implicit immorality. Combining elements of the supernatural, aestheticism, and the Gothic, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an unclassifiable and uniquely unsettling work of fiction.
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