The Picture of Dorian Gray

By Joseph Pearce and Oscar Wilde

Edited by Joseph Pearce

Contributors to this volume:
Richard Harp
Dominic Manganiello
Joseph Pearce
Brian Vickers

In true Faustian tradition The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the tale of a young man who sells his soul to the devil in return for youthful immortality, only to discover that the ""devil's bargain"" is no bargain at all. ""What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"" When Dorian Gray is asked this question he knows the answer. He has learned his lesson the hard way and has destroyed the lives of others into the bargain. The moral is inescapable, making The Picture of Dorian Gray more than merely a classic of Victorian literature. It is a classic of Christian literature also. This edition of Wilde's novel is edited by Joseph Pearce, author of The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde, and contains critical essays that look at the work from a tradition-oriented perspective.

The Ignatius Critical Editions represent a tradition-oriented alternative to popular textbook series such as the Norton Critical Editions or Oxford World Classics, and are designed to concentrate on traditional readings of the Classics of world literature. Whereas many modern critical editions have succumbed to the fads of modernism and post-modernism, this series will concentrate on tradition-oriented criticism of these great works. Edited by acclaimed literary biographer, Joseph Pearce, the Ignatius Critical Editions will ensure that traditional moral readings of the works are given prominence, instead of the feminist, or deconstructionist readings that often proliferate in other series of 'critical editions'. As such, they represent a genuine extension of consumer-choice, enabling educators, students and lovers of good literature to buy editions of classic literary works without having to 'buy into' the ideologies of secular fundamentalism. The series is particularly aimed at tradition-minded literature professors offering them an alternative for their students. The initial list will have about 15 - 20 titles. The goal is to release three books a season, or six in a year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Feb 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781681493763

Joseph Pearce

Joseph Pearce is the author of numerous literary works including Literary Converts, The Quest for Shakespeare and Shakespeare on Love, and the editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions series. His other books include literary biographies of Oscar Wilde, J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Joseph Pearce

Ave Maria University

It is not possible to understand the conflicting passions at the troubled heart of The Picture of Dorian Gray without understanding the conflicting passions at the heart of its troubled author. Oscar Wilde was a deeply flawed genius who was lauded for his genius and loathed for his flaws. He was one of the most celebrated wits of late Victorian England and probably the most popular playwright of his generation. Yet he was also held in scorn for his dandyism and his decadence and was perceived by many as a corrupter of public morals. At the same time, his works, for the most part, exhibit a profoundly orthodox Christian morality. From the charm of his fairy stories to the denouements of his plays, Wilde shows himself to be a Christian writer par excellence. How can we make sense of these apparent contradictions, and how will this help us to understand the deepest meaning of his novel?

Is Wilde an iconoclast at war with moral conventions, or is he an iconographer depicting moral truths from a traditional Christian perspective? Ask this question of the average postmodern intellectual, and you will probably be told that Wilde was a brilliant artist who was persecuted for his homosexuality and deserves to be remembered as a martyr for the cause of sexual liberation who was sacrificed on the altar of puritanical Victorian values. Ask the same question of someone who knows the real facts of Wilde’s life, and you will be told that Wilde was a brilliant artist (the intellectual gets that part of the story right, at least) who was never at peace with his homosexuality and who, when at last faced with the sordid reality of his situation, described his homosexual predilections as his pathology.

The first thing we need to know about Wilde is that he was at war with himself. Wilde the would-be saint and Wilde the woeful sinner were in deadly conflict, one with the other. In this he was no different from the rest of us. Throughout his life, even at those times that he was at his most decadent, he retained a deep love for the Person of Christ and a lasting reverence for the Catholic Church. Born in Dublin in 1854, of Irish Protestant parents, Wilde spent much of his life flirting with Catholicism. He almost converted as an undergraduate at Trinity College in Dublin and was on the brink of conversion a year or so later as an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford. There were no doctrinal differences preventing him from being received into the Church. He believed everything the Church believed and even spoke eloquently and wittily in defense of Catholic dogmas, such as the Immaculate Conception. The only reason he failed to follow the logic of his Catholic convictions was a fear of being disinherited by his father if he did so. Years later, after his fall from favor following the scandal surrounding his homosexual affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, he spoke wistfully of his reluctant decision to turn his back on the Church. Much of my moral obliquity is due to the fact that my father would not allow me to become a Catholic, he confided to a journalist. The artistic side of the Church would have cured my degeneracies. I intend to be received before long.¹ In the event, he was finally received into the Church shortly before his death in 1900.

Needless to say, Wilde’s Christianity informed the moral dimension of his work. His poetry exhibits either a selfless love for Christ or, at its darkest, a deep self-loathing in the face of the ugliness of his own sinfulness. His short stories are almost always animated by a deep Christian morality, with The Selfish Giant deserving a timeless accolade as one of the finest Christian fairy stories ever written. His plays are more than merely comedies or tragedies; they are morality plays in which virtue is vindicated and vice vanquished. And this brings us to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde’s only novel and a true masterpiece of Victorian fiction.

At this juncture Wilde’s postmodern admirers will no doubt cite the most famous or infamous aphorism from Dorian Gray as a means of refuting a moral reading of the novel. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book, Wilde wrote in his preface to the novel. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. It is, however, Wilde himself who answers the postmoderns with his own emphatic insistence that Dorian Gray is a moral book. Responding to a negative review of his newly published novel in the St. James Gazette in June 1890, Wilde wrote the following defense of its deepest moral meaning:

All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment. The painter, Basil Hallward, worshipping physical beauty far too much, as most painters do, dies by the hand of one in whose soul he has created a monstrous and absurd vanity. Dorian Gray, having led a life of mere sensation and pleasure, tries to kill conscience, and at that moment kills himself. Lord Henry Wotton seeks to be merely the spectator of life. He finds that those who reject the battle are more deeply wounded than those who take part in it. Yes; there is a terrible moral in Dorian Gray—a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but which will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.²

This short defense of the morality of the work is of particular importance because it is the most direct comment on the novel’s meaning by the author himself. Clearly Wilde considered Dorian Gray to be a moral book and that the moral was so obvious and unsubtle that it constituted an artistic error. The work would have been better, artistically, if he had subsumed or hidden the moral a little more subtly within the story rather than allowing it to stick out like a spike. Although the novel’s morality will be evident to all those who read it with a healthy mind, the unhealthy, such as the prurient, will not be able to see the moral of the story, even if it’s literarily staring them in the face. Blinded by the ignorance of their ignobility, they grub around among the novel’s sordid details with salacious abandon or puritanical disdain, flailing about in the darkness and failing to perceive the light. Missing the point they impale themselves on something else. Here we shall leave them flailing hopelessly, while we look with Wilde at the deeper morality of the work.

The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in Lippincott’s Magazine in 1890 and was published in book form with additional chapters and a preface in the following year. Its principal protagonists are Lord Henry Wotton and Dorian Gray, the former being the primary cause of the latter’s corruption through a poisonous influence akin to infernal possession: He would seek to dominate him—had already, indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own (see p. 41). Lord Henry at first confuses and then converts the youthful Gray to his gospel of decadence, flattering Dorian’s vanity and tempting him to self-indulgence.

The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it (see p. 22).

Poisoned by Lord Henry’s flattery and philandering philosophy, Dorian’s vanity verges on the insanity that will ultimately cause both suicide and murder. I know, now, he exclaims to Basil Hallward, the artist who had painted his portrait,

that when one loses one’s good looks . . . one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself. . . .

I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me, and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly! (see p. 30-31).

This is the catastrophic point upon which the whole novel rests. The moment of truth. Significantly Wilde suggests a supernatural element. As soon as these words are spoken, Dorian throws himself onto the divan, burying his face in the cushions, as though he were praying. Thus, with hints of either the divine or the diabolical, Dorian’s wish receives added power. Whether from prayer to God or through a pact with the Devil his wish will be granted. The portents of doom are suggested in the prophetic nature of Dorian’s final words. The picture will indeed mock him horribly one day, but only because it has faithfully reflected his desire that it change while he remains the same.

Dorian’s desire for eternal youth keeps him outwardly beautiful, but the price he pays is an inner corruption. The picture grows increasingly ugly with every act of sin and cruelty that Gray commits. When he commits murder the hands of the picture drip with blood. Dorian’s physical beauty is but a mask, ultimately superficial. The metaphysical reality is to be found in the portrait, which becomes the mirror of his soul, the ugly truth staring him uncomfortably in the face.

The novel’s plot unfurls like a parable, illuminating the grave spiritual dangers involved in a life of immoral action and experiment. Its ante-climax—the lesser climax that precedes its ultimate moral—is an angry exchange between Dorian Gray and Basil Hallward. The artist beseeches his friend to deny all the horrible stories that are circulating about him. Dorian smiles contemptuously and decides to show Hallward the hideously deformed painting that he has locked away from prying eyes in an upstairs room. Come upstairs, Basil. . . . I keep a diary of my life from day to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written. I shall show it to you if you come with me (see p. 169).

So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil? Dorian asks before revealing the picture.

An exclamation of horror broke from the painter’s lips as he saw in the dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him. There was something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing. Good heavens! it was Dorian Gray’s own face that he was looking at!. . .

It is the face of my soul, Dorian explains (see pp. 171-72).

Examining the portrait, which he himself had painted many years earlier, Hallward sees that the leprosies of sin were slowly eating the thing away. Immediately we are reminded that Dorian Gray’s life is worse than any death: The rotting of a corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful. What follows is surely an example of the overt Christian morality that had prompted Wilde to lament the artistic error that had made the moral of his novel too obvious: Good God, Dorian, what a lesson! What an awful lesson!. . . Pray, Dorian, pray. . . . The prayer of your pride has been answered. The prayer of your repentance will be answered also.

Believing that he too is being punished for his idolatrous love for Dorian, Hallward beseeches his friend to join him in prayers of penance. Dorian appears to be teetering on the brink of repentance when an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had been suggested to him by the image on the canvas (see p. 173). Grabbing a knife he stabs the artist repeatedly in the neck until he is dead, thereby adding murder to the catalogue of sins that he had committed.

The wretchedness of Dorian’s life becomes ever more pronounced as the novel approaches its climax. When one of his former dalliances, now a prostitute, calls him the devil’s bargain he reacts angrily as if stabbed by the truth of the words. Finally the novel’s overarching moral, implicit throughout, is stated explicitly in Dorian’s last conversation with Lord Henry. By the way, Dorian, Lord Henry asks, no doubt intent on observing his quarry’s reaction, what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Startled by the question, Dorian stares in horror at his friend: Why do you ask me that, Harry?

My dear fellow, says Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in feigned surprise, I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer. That is all. . . .

Lord Henry proceeds to mock the whole concept of the soul’s existence, proclaiming that Art has a soul but man has not. Faced with such facile posturing, Dorian offers the fruits of his own bitter experience: The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each one of us. I know it (see pp. 233-34).

With his own sin, and Lord Henry’s cynicism, weighing heavily on his conscience, Dorian feels a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood. He compares his own wretchedness with the innocence of the latest woman whom he had lured to love him. What a laugh she had!—just like a thrush singing. And how pretty she had been in her cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing, but she had everything that he had lost (see p. 239). It is difficult to read and ponder such lines without an image of the unstained purity of Eden springing to mind. The innocent girl, as yet untainted and unsullied by Dorian’s deadly touch, reminds us of Eve. She has not yet eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from which Dorian had glutted himself insatiably.

He knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influence on others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame. . . .

Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that the portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the unsullied splendour of eternal youth! All his failure had been due to that. Better for him that each sin of his life had been brought its sure, swift penalty along with it. There was purification in punishment (see p. 240).

Such contemplation brings Dorian to the very brink of repentance but, at the last, he feels unable to confess his sins, unwilling to accept the consequences of his crimes. If he cannot cleanse his soul from sin, he must be rid of the conscience that has made his sins a burden to him. Then, liberated from any trace of conscience, he can once more enjoy his sinful life. Convinced that the hideous portrait is to blame, he decides upon its destruction. It had been like a conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it. In the novel’s final climactic moments we see the fulfillment of the moral that Wilde himself had ascribed to his novel, that in his attempt to kill conscience Dorian Gray kills himself.

In spite of Wilde’s claim in the preface to the novel that there was no such thing as a moral book, there can be little doubt that The Picture of Dorian Gray is itself a contradiction of the claim. Few novels have been more obviously moral in extent and intent than this cautionary tale of a soul’s betrayal of itself and others. Wilde himself insisted, in the face of further claims that the book was immoral, that it is a story with a moral and that the moral possessed an ethical beauty.³ He also insisted, once again, that the novel’s weakness was not in the absence of a moral but in its all too obvious presence:

[T]he real trouble I experienced in writing the story was that of keeping the extremely obvious moral subordinate to the artistic and dramatic effect.

When I first conceived the idea of a young man selling his soul in exchange for eternal youth—an idea that is old in the history of literature, but to which I have given new form—I felt that, from an aesthetic point of view, it would be difficult to keep the moral in its proper secondary place; and even now I do not feel quite sure that I have been able to do so. I think the moral too apparent.⁴

Amid the condemnation of many secular critics of the immoral nature of the novel, a few eyebrows were raised by the praise that it received from several Christian publications. Christian Leader and the Christian World referred to it as an ethical parable, and Light, a journal of Christian mysticism, regarded it as a work of high spiritual import. A critic in the Scots Observer who had previously attacked the novel scathingly, commented sarcastically that it must have been particularly painful for Wilde to discover that his work was being praised by Christian publications on both sides of the Atlantic. Wilde, however, appeared to be pleased by Christian approval of the morality of his novel, insisting that he had

no hesitation in saying that I regard such criticism as a very gratifying tribute to my story.

For if a work of art is rich, and vital, and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame. It will be to each man what he is himself. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.⁵

This appraisal by Wilde of art in general, and his own work in particular, is singularly intriguing because it suggests that he believes that his novel serves the reader in the same way that the portrait serves Dorian Gray, as a mirror that reflects the state of one’s soul. The implications for the reader of Dorian Gray are obvious. We can, if we choose, learn from the moral lessons that it teaches and apply it to our own lives.

Writing to a friend within weeks of the novel’s publication, Wilde complained that it has been attacked on ridiculous grounds, but I think it will be ultimately recognized as a real work of art with a strong ethical lesson inherent in it.⁶

Ironically, one of the most poignant appraisals of The Picture of Dorian Gray was made, many years later, by Lord Alfred Douglas, whose homosexual relationship with Wilde would tarnish the writer’s reputation far more conclusively than any of his books. In his memoirs, Douglas attacked those Victorian critics who had condemned Dorian Gray for being immoral as well as the later generations of critics who attacked its morality.

As a matter of fact the book is entirely moral, and that is probably why the feeble and the sheep-like critics of today affect to despise it. . . . What they do not like about Dorian Gray is precisely that it is the moral story of a man who destroys his own conscience and thereby comes to a terrible end. If Dorian Gray had been presented as triumphant and happy to the last, they would probably hail it as a great work of art, whereas Oscar Wilde, just like Shakespeare or any first-rate writer, knew that a play or a novel without a moral is, from the artistic point of view, a monstrosity.

I once said . . . that while Dorian Gray was on the surface a moral book, there was in it an undercurrent of immorality and corruption. I said that out of the bitterness of my heart, but it was not a fair criticism, because the undercurrent is part of the legitimate atmosphere which the author creates for his story.⁷

These words, written almost fifty years after the novel’s publication, suggest that Wilde’s stricture in the preface to Dorian Gray that there was no such thing as a moral or an immoral book had been contradicted by almost everyone who read it, and indeed by the one who wrote it. The issue of morality was as central to critical conceptions and misconceptions of the book as it had been to the author’s own conceptions of it. Wilde’s own attitude to the critics of his novel was best summarized in a lesser known but more profound aphorism from the preface: Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.

Wilde’s words are a challenge to every reader of The Picture of Dorian Gray and, therefore, are a direct challenge to the reader of this edition of Wilde’s delightfully controversial novel. If the reader of the following pages approaches the work in the critically cultivated manner that Wilde prescribes, there is indeed hope that the reader will learn the priceless lesson that Wilde teaches.

The Text of

THE PICTURE OF

DORIAN GRAY

THE PREFACE

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.

The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban¹ seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.

No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.

No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.

Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

OSCAR WILDE

CHAPTER 1

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags¹ on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum,² whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk³ curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine,⁴ seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon⁵ note of a distant organ.

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.

As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skillfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done, said Lord Henry languidly. "You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor.⁶ The Academy⁷ is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor is really the only place."

I don’t think I shall send it anywhere, he answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him in Oxford. No, I won’t send it anywhere.

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.

I know you will laugh at me, he replied, but I really can’t exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it.

Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.

Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same.

"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn’t know you were so vain; and I really can’t see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis,⁸ who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus,⁹ and you—well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don’t think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don’t flatter yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him."

You don’t understand me, Harry, answered the artist. Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

Dorian Gray? Is that his name? asked Lord Henry, walking across the studio toward Basil Hallward.

Yes, that is his name. I didn’t intend to tell it to you.

But why not?

"Oh, I can’t explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one’s life. I

Reviews for The Picture of Dorian Gray

[zoes_human · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Great plot with lots of clever language. The rating comes down to this: I simply cannot enjoy a book so laden with misogyny.Now I'll be the first to admit that the word "misogyny" gets overused at times with classic literature. Some people apply it to any portrayal of women that doesn't fit in with modern ideas of feminism. In which case, they would probably find all Victorian literature anti-feminist. I'm a little more comfortable putting things into the context of the time in which they were published though. The trouble with this particular work isn't so much that the portrayal of women is old-fashioned, although it is, but rather that the female characters in it have absolutely no redeeming characteristics and are the age-old stereotypes of the helpless victim, the conniving social climber, and the wife who does nothing but drag her husband down. Those were dated characters at the time, and honestly, I expect better of Oscar Wilde.

[evelynnygren · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't know what I was getting into when I started this book, but I thought it would, at least, be something whimsical, light, and magical. While the writing was full of emotion and riddled with dazzling imagery, I didn't feel any magical-like connection to the story at all. I think because I've been wondering about this book for so long and building it up in my head, my high expectations got the better of me once again. I liked the story overall, but the whole time I was reading it, I felt like something was missing. I thought—and hoped—that The Picture of Dorian Gray would be a new favorite for me, but I was sadly disappointed. My desire to read classics has not been abandoned just yet, though, so that's good at least. While I'm sure many people adore—or may some day adore—this book, I just found it alright.

[jixian-427770 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wilde's prose is at once sharp and lush, ebbing and flowing seamlessly between the perspectives of his characters, dripping with contradiction and complexity. It is a perfect vehicle by which he explores the farthest reaches of depravity in the human soul, packaged in the starkly contrasting vessel of a human body that is adorned with beauty, grace, and a deadly influence. Truly a thesis on the binaries of "inside and outside" and "sin and innocence" as they pertain to both art and humanity, The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde's brutal expose of the seductive, rotting underbelly of a seemingly beautiful and refined society.

[cpg_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dorian Gray was the LibraryThing book club read in January 2014. Here I compile (and lightly redact) my comments from that activity:1) About 5 chapters in, it's hard to imagine how this book will be very haunting, what with Lord Henry cracking wise every few seconds. It's like a Gothic novel written by Groucho Marx.2) "Ho, ho," I thought, "Criticizing authors for being wordy is like criticizing Mozart for using too many notes." I mean, the more words we can get from masters of the language, the better, right? Then I got to Chapter 11 of Dorian Gray. It's the most blatant example of padding I've ever encountered in a classic novel. It's the literary equivalent of reading the phone book into the record during a filibuster.3) The edition I'm reading has sparse footnotes in chapters 1 through 10, and then about 200 footnotes in chapter 11. As I recall, some of those footnotes pinpoint the exhibit catalogs and merchant catalogs that Wilde seemed to be using when writing chapter 11. It reminds me of Capote's quip: "That's not writing: that's typing." IMO, chapter 11 is bankrupt of literary worth. (Sorry.)4) Geez, take it easy on the furniture! "And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened his cigarette-case." (Chapter 2) "Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him." (Chapter 2) "The hot tears welled into his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying." (Chapter 2) "As the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a sofa, and a look of pain came into his face." (Chapter 2) "Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the sofa." (Chapter 4) "He flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face." (Chapter 7) "He threw himself into a chair and began to think." (Chapter 7) "Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen." (Chapter 8) "He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal stand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung himself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves." (Chapter 10) "'What is it all about?' cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging himself down on the sofa." (Chapter 12) "Then he flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table and buried his face in his hands." (Chapter 13) "He sent him to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and began to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him." (Chapter 20)5) When I mentioned the sources that Wilde seemed to be using while writing chapter 11, I was apparently being too generous. That he copied verbatim from various books on embroideries, tapestries, gemstones, etc., is apparently well-documented, in particular in the OUP edition of his complete works.6) "A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies." Note that this is a truism, with one word replaced by its antonym. This is also the formula Wilde (allegedly) used in: "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing." In general, Wilde's one-liners seem formulaic to me. Just as (according to Monty Python) an argument is not the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes, wit requires more than the inversion of bromides.7) By the way, on the topic of Oscar Wilde, formulaic witticisms, and Monty Python, there's a Python sketch that starts out: "The Prince of Wales: Ah, my congratulations, Wilde. Your play is a great success. The whole of London's talking about you. Oscar Wilde: Your highness, there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. (There follows fifteen seconds of restrained and sycophantic laughter) The Prince of Wales: Oh, very witty, Wilde . . . very, very witty. James McNeill Whistler: There is only one thing in the world worse than being witty, and that is not being witty. (Fifteeen more seconds of the same) Oscar Wilde: I wish I had said that, Whistler. James McNeill Whistler: Ah, you will, Oscar, you will. (more laughter) Oscar Wilde: Your Highness, do you know James McNeill Whistler? The Prince of Wales: Yes, we've played squash together. Oscar Wilde: There is only one thing worse than playing squash together, and that is playing it by yourself. (silence) Oscar Wilde: I wish I hadn't said that. James McNeill Whistler: But you did, Oscar, you did."

[caanderson-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A man is obsessed with his youth dies after destroying the one thing keeping him young.

[thomas.cannon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the many classics I missed in school. I enjoyed the book, but am glad I read the foreword so that I knew why Oscar Wilde wrote it (He wanted praise art that was for the sake of art alone). It was also helpful to know ahead of time not to expect much of a plot.

Mr. Wilde (along with footnotes) shines a light on the life and times of his age (Late 1800s). That made it interesting enough for me to read. He does not delve into the feelings of a character that does not age or bear the marks of a immoral life. However, the interplay of the characters does explain why he may not have guilt. The entire novel explains why guilt and concern for immorality is a trap to be avoided.

Of course, the murder Dorian Gray gets away with is not the thing Wilder cared about. He wanted to talk art.

[thedivineoomba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Its not often I read a book that I find chilling. Not scary, but a character that makes you shiver.Dorian Gray is a young handsome man who has the world falling at this feet. He makes an off-hand remark to some friends about never growing old and his portrait showing his age, etc. And it comes true. How, it doesn't matter. Under the influence of friend who lives his life without regard to anyone else, Dorian Gray becomes truly to evil. Oscar Wilde wrote a remarkable book. Where it shines is how Mr. Wilde managed to write a book that at the top is light and shiny, but underneath it all is a dark goo. Also, the theme of right vs wrong is well written - the idea that if you don't do anything wrong, legally, but your words and actions causes pain, scandal, or death in others, ethically it drags you down. This is book also has social commentary on the life style of the English upper class who have too much money, too much time, and not enough responsibilities to others.

[tobinelliott · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This one caught me by surprise. Like everyone else, I've always known the basic story of Dorian Gray, but, it was yet another classic that I'd somehow never gotten around to before now. And that's too bad, because this book just crackles with spirit.

Yes, the book is a product of its time, but its two main characters, the titular Dorian Gray and his friend Lord Henry absolutely light up the world when they're on page together. Dorian Gray is what Brett Easton Ellis only wished his American Psycho, Patrick Bateman, could be (minus the ubiquitous and excessive violence). Gray is the 19th century Narcissus, staring at his own increasingly repugnant painting while contrasting it with a reflected image of his youth.

But the painting does so much more than just grow old for him. It also takes his baser emotions. Gone are grief, and empathy, and love. What's left behind is only a shallow, sociopathic need for things, for experiences, but none satisfy. He's like a junkie forever chasing the memory of that first high. So, he's a wonderfully written and eminently fascinating character to dissect.

And Lord Henry! My god, damn near every phrase that Wilde has come out of his mouth is singularly quotable. He has a similarly contradictory outlook to life as most of the military leaders in Catch-22, without the satirical tongue in cheek. I flat out loved him. The novel is worth a second read just for his dialogue alone.

What a lovely surprise this book was.

[lukegoldstein · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reeally interesting beginning. It's my first Oscar Wilde book so I was really taken back by how contemporary it felt. The set up for the scenario was really nice and kept the pace going, but then once the curtain fell on the main plot twist, it got very bogged down in description and pages and pages went by without anyone doing anything. I might have rated this lower, but it pulled it back together for the race to the end of the story and got my vote back. There is a good reason this story is known as a classic.

[mikepen-881889 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good solid 4 stars from me. Though I suspect this will be one of those books that sits at the back of my head, with more of a lingering effect than I am thinking right now, having just finished it. Dare say I will read it again sometime and indeed the rating may perhaps instead be a 5 star.

[wishanem · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not to my taste.

A clearer portrait of the author than his comedic plays, but not a pleasant one. Hedonism, cynicism, and melodramatic self-destructiveness were as much a part of Oscar as they are this work. I think the great reputation and broad dissemination of this book hurt it for me- I wasn't surprised by anything in it and I was expecting to be.

[musicformovies · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While easily labeled as a classic gothic horror story; the Picture of Dorian Gray is far more than a scary bedtime tale. Does the soul exist? What is the meaning of life, and what brings happiness? Are we fated or do we have free will? Perhaps most importantly, can we improve for the better; does the life that we lead lead others to be their best selves, or their worse selves? A relatively short read that leaves you with much to ponder after the last page has been turned.

[john_warner-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dorian Gray, a young Narcissus, has everything he desires; he has wealth, power, and friends who want to be in his company. After a friend paints his portrait, he bemoans the fact that his painting will always display a youthful visage while he will age."I'm am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose?"Unaware of what he is doing, Dorian makes a Faustian pact:"If it were only the other way! If it were 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 soul for that!"When he falls for a young ingenue actress and she for him, but later spurns her affections and breaks off an unpending marriage, he notice a slight change in his portrait. Is he imagining the alteration?For those who are familiar with the story, you know a change in the painting has occurred and with each subsequent sin, it continues to transmorgrify.Although works of literature considered classics don't always hold the test of time in my humble opinion, this short literary classic was easily readable. Oscar Wilde's prose captured and entranced me as I turned pages to read about the continued degredation of the narrator.

[dzejncrvena · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is my entry for the 2021 popSugar Reading Prompt #47: "A book from your TBR that you associate with a favourite person, place or thing"
So, my favorite person is named Dorijan and he also read this in high school.

Was it 2 years ago when I shelved it as DNF? Blame the preface. I appreciate art as well as its artist; I was not of sound mind to digest all those words that time. Glad I skipped it this time.
I couldn't put it down since chapter one. Even if I find Henry/Harry annoying, I highlighted most quotes from him. He makes sense, sometimes. We probably think alike.....or maybe not.
As for dear Dorian, I feel ya kid. *insert Forever Young chorus*

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The concept is fascinating, but there's something about this book that just didn't work for me. Perhaps the long editorials about art or the sense of pretension throughout made me a bit sour, but I just couldn't quite love this book. It is, however, a very reasonable length for a classic, for that reason, I'd consider this one worth the read.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Horror story by Oscar Wilde about a young man who sells his soul for eternal beauty. Read this for f2f book club.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well, that was...dark. An intriguing concept about the soul mirrored in a tangible object, but the writing veers from hilarious and quippy to overdramatic and decadent.

[lorifox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The interesting concept and character and plot development kept me interested even when the soliloquies of Lord Henry bored me into bouts of sleepiness. Overall, I enjoyed the book, which is well-written, and I didn’t quite see the ending coming, but I felt it was appropriate.

[paulagalvan-323293 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I knew the story and I've seen several movies about Dorian Gray, but I'd never read the book. I'm glad I finally decided to to do. I love the language and wit that Oscar Wilde uses to tell the story of his doomed friend, Dorian Gray , who gives over his soul to have everlasting youth and beauty. I say friend because it is thought that Mr. Wilde considered himself to be the character of Lord Henry Wootton in real life. And, if Dorian is the vain innocent that chooses a life of debauchery over virtue, then Lord Henry is surely the devil that tempted him along that path. The story is classic and the lesson it teaches is worth reflecting on. Does anything worth having come without a price? Probably not.

[fromthecomfychair · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So much food for thought. Look forward to our bookclub discussion.

[ffortsa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Of course, I had read it before, but so long ago, it was the most general of memories. As it turns out, it was fascinating, and menacing. Our downtown F2F reading group was a bit sparse for this meeting, but the conversation was excellent. In fact, a young man from Kenya had included us in a search for a really good book group that actually discussed the book, and afterwards declared he had found us just want he wanted! Great praise. I might post a review/discussion later when I'm a little more energetic.

[riida_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

i hated the first third of this book. it felt shallow, and petty, and pretentious. somewhere along the line, i realized im reading a work of genius. it was a wonderful feeling! its too complex for my little head, but i could feel it in my bones. spent the next few moments after reading this looking for videos of smart people discussing the book. highly recommended reading.

[meaqhan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Big fan, reread this for a project. Wish Wilde’s publisher hadn’t rushed the added chapters to this version, however.Later edit: Boy, I really didn't feel like writing much when I put that one up. Ok, this is a 4.5 star rating. I adore Wilde's prose, no matter how much my peers might criticize his aesthetic style. I know it's hypocritical to the "message" of the story (subject of the paper mentioned earlier) but I don't really care, it's indulgent and lovely and beautiful. I don't have the skills required to describe it as nicely as he could. Ah, what a guy.

[tomdonaghey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1891) by Oscar Wilde. A classic tale of selling your soul, in this case for vanity’s sake. Dorian Gray will always look young even as his sins are transferred to the once beautiful portrait. But, as always, the price must be paid.A morality tale of the first order.

[nx74defiant · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very familiar story

[linyarai · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved it! Henry got a bit too wordy at times, but Dorian was fun.

[morgandax · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read every tidbit of information in this version of the book, including the chronology and all the appendices.
It's interesting that such a short (so much so that it is not even technically a novel) book with measures taken to thwart certain interpretations, would wind up so controversial, and lead to the jailing of the author.

I found the plot interesting, and the writing a bit tiresome at times. Though that is likely more due to the period it was written, and less the quality of writing. The dialogue was surprisingly interesting though, despite the antiquity of the story. I truly enjoyed all the notes and history delivered bout both the story and author, giving it that much more depth and interest.

[elizabeth_foster-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A brilliant read, with gothic undertones. A monstrous shadow is at play throughout, which grows more and more immense as the story progresses. The author was fearless in his exploration of love and passion, sensation, intellect, youth, ageing, and morality. I finished with a lingering sadness that he was vilified for exploring such themes.

[sandrabrower · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dorian- see what happens when you make wishes and never say among other wishes?!

This book was an extremely quick read for me. I was totally surprised by the twist and turns of the story line. But Lord Harry sometimes bothered me with his wimsical outlook on life an his soliqy's.

Poor, poor Basil how I had wished (aow,) that he had won over Dorian instead of being corrupted by Lord Henry's view on life. I guess the good guy doesn't always win. Do they?

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another of those classics that I can't believe I waited so long to read. Useful introduction and other added material in this edition, too.