The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oxford World's Classics)
by Oscar Wilde
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Book Summary Information
Author: Oscar WildeEditor: Isobel Murray
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-07-16
ISBN: 0192833650
Number of pages: 264
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oxford World's Classics)
Book Review: Beautiful Tragedy Of The Effects Of Callousness & Hedonism
Summary: 5 Stars
A gorgeous & cultured young man of wealth is twice destroyed by his twisted love for himself. This book was written with a haunting and lovely prose style, excellent plot development, and a satisfying & breathtaking conclusion. It is in every sense a classic.
Summary of The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oxford World's Classics)
Since its first publication in 1890, Oscar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 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. After having his portrait painted, Dorian Gray is captivated by his own beauty. Tempted by his world-weary friend, the decadent Lord Henry Wotton, he wished to stay young forever and pledges his very soul to keep his good looks. 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.Set in fin-de-si�cle London, the novel traces a path from the studio of painter Basil Howard to the opium dens of the East End. The text of this edition is derived from the Oxford English Texts, which prints a critically established version of the first book edition of 1891. Also included is a new, fuller introduction, which considers the difference between the 1890 and 1891 texts, Wilde's range of sources, significant critical approaches to the novel and its reputation since 1891, full explanatory notes that identify Wilde's sources, and an up-to-date-bibliography.
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."
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