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    The Picture of Dorian Gray
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    The Picture of Dorian Gray
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    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    Ebook282 pages4 hours

    The Picture of Dorian Gray

    By Oscar Wilde

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Hey Girl... I'd sell my soul for you Dorian Gray might be as pretty as a picture, but he's paid a devilishly high price for it. He'll stay drop-dead gorgeous, but there's something nasty festering in the attic...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPulp the Classics
    Release dateNov 19, 2013
    ISBN9781843441854
    Author

    Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He studied at Trinity College Dublin and then at Magdalen College Oxford where he started the cult of 'Aestheticism', which involves making an art of life. Following his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, he published several books of stories ostensibly for children and one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). Wilde's first success as a playwright was with Lady Windemere's Fan in 1892. He followed this up with A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, all performed on the London stage between 1892 and 1895. However Wilde's homosexual relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas was exposed by the young man's father, the Marquis of Queensbury. Wilde brought a libel suit against Queensbury but lost and was sentenced to two year's imprisonment. He was released in 1897 and fled to France where he died a broken man in 1900.

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    Reviews for The Picture of Dorian Gray

    4/5

    8,654 ratings264 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. I wish I had read it long ago- I was really missing out. The writing is absolutely beautiful and drew me into the book right from the first page. The story is fascinating, the characters are complex and the plot unfolds perfectly. What I liked most was that I didn't find the book predictable. I really did not see the ending coming and was surprised at every change Dorian went through. I went from loving Dorian to hating him to not being sure how to feel about him. He was quite a nasty character at times but also fascinating. The book came together nicely in the end and overall it was just wonderful.

      For more of my reviews and recommendations, visit my blog: here
    • 4/5
      A brilliantly written novel enclosing important life lessons. A bit dragged out towards the end though.
    • 4/5
      exellent timeless classic...!
    • 5/5
      A fascinating study of beauty gone evil.
    • 4/5
      I think Oscar Wilde was a genius, but some of his passages were too weighty for me.
    • 3/5
      It was based on an interesting premise: A man makes a wish that he will remain as young and beautiful as a painting of himself at age 20. The wish comes true and the painting ages and worse, shows the sins of the man over time. The story is about the effect on Dorian Gray and his soul.The writing was beautiful, poetic at times. I listened to it on CD, and I think the entire disk 4 (or maybe 3) was basically a poetic narrative of Dorian's life from age 20 to 38. I got lost and my mind drifted because there were no scenes. It was way too much summary in my opinion. Of course, the book was written in the late 1800s, so it was probably appropriate for the times. But my biggest issue was the characters. I have a difficult time loving books if I can't identify or at least root for a character. And there was nothing to like about Dorian. He was a rich, vain man who did nothing but take advantage of his looks. Getting into his deluded mind was very creepy, especially when he killed (won't say who) someone with no remorse. At the end, I thought he might redeem himself as his began to realize how terrible his sins were. But even then, he made excuses and continued to act selfishly. And I didn't like his friend, Sir Henry much better.
    • 4/5
      I knew I would love this book, and love it I did.

      You probably know the story, or you know bits of it. But actually reading it is a different experience. It's everything you expect of Wilde: witty. dry. philosophical. hilarious.

      The humour meets the dark undertones of sin well, and it makes the story feel full and complete. It's always interesting, although the pages when it goes on with philosophy can be tough to read at times (although usually ultimately humourous, as the characters are all idiots).

      All in all, it's a great read. I have nothing bad to say here.
    • 4/5
      I was really surprised by this book. It was better than I thought it would be I really enjoyed it.
    • 4/5
      People get older and lose their looks. Don't whine about it. Moral of the story.
    • 5/5
      Great story about some despicable and jaded people.
    • 5/5
      Oscar Wilde turns his hand to the gothic horror tale and it's brilliant.
    • 3/5
      This is a great book. I did not find it tedious or boring at all. It's a great read!
    • 5/5
      I know this book was a little controversial but I still thought it was a great read. didnt get the whole controversy about it though.
    • 5/5
      Waited a long time to read this book. Glad I did.
    • 3/5
      I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would. I liked the aging picture thing. Everyone always says that this book has a theme of homosexuality, but I just didn't see it. Perhaps I will re-read it. But ironically it does remind me of being gay, but because of personal things happening at the time with friends rather than what is actually in the book, so you'd think I would have seen it.
    • 3/5
      Not anywhere near as entrancing as the first time I read it - but that's likely due to me aging a decade. Initially, I found Wilde's witticisms (mainly via Lord Henry) thought-provoking and... sparkly:"The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror."This time 'round, they veered more toward shit-stirring, sound-bite nonsense (intentionally? Lord Henry exists to suggest corruption and watch the show). But so long as you don't view it through the lenses of a purely self-indulgent fuck, I agree AMEN:"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self. Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own life - that is the important thing. As for the lives of one's neighbors, if one wished to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt one's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern. Besides, Individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality."And it still managed to resonate, albeit less so (which probably means I'm less of an asshole than I was, or just more aware of fellow life):"All ways end at the same point - disillusion."*reread*
    • 4/5
      A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

      Most people assume we on Goodreads have read everything. It was a shock to many that I had never read Baudelaire until last week. It was a similar disclosure which saw me read this novel for the first time.

      This is a bitchy book. My brain afforded the late George Sanders the vocal delivery. Yes, I know he was in a film adaptation, but this sordid sophisticate morality tale demands such. His own end illuminates the pages.

      So why should we return to (or discover) this splendid tale, the twist of which has become a cultural landmark? We learn about beauty and privilege. We learn about the weight of ennui and other French decadence. There is sodomy, opium, and suicide. Perhaps I will open a beer and ponder how Youth bolted out the back door.
    • 3/5
      A fantastic plot buried under too many words (mostly coming from the mouth of Lord Henry). It would have made a gripping and terrifying novella or short story. To alter an accusation from Dorian and turn it back on Wilde, "You would sacrifice any reader, Oscar, for the sake of an epigram."
    • 3/5
      I have read this book 3 times. Every time I swear that I didn't read it - I just remember the synopsis - and then I get halfway through and realize I'm rereading it.
    • 4/5
      As the novel opens, artist Basil Hallward is painting a portrait of an extraordinarily handsome young man, Dorian Gray. In a conversation with his friend, Lord Henry Wotton, Hallward tells him that he believes the portrait is the best work he’s ever done. Lord Henry arranges to meet Dorian and he soon gains influence over the impressionable young man. The finished portrait is remarkable, and Dorian unthinkingly expresses a desire that the portrait would age while he maintained the beauty of youth. Lord Henry encourages Dorian to hedonistic excess. To Dorian’s horror, his portrait becomes uglier as Dorian’s character becomes more and more corrupt. It’s as if the portrait reveals the true state of Dorian’s soul. Although I haven’t seen the academy award-winning film version of this book, I have a feeling that I’d probably like it better than the book. Wilde doesn’t leave enough to the imagination, and much of the horror in the story is diluted by wordiness.
    • 5/5
      Another one I hadn't read since the '70s, and I wondered whether it might have aged badly, but no, like the picture itself, this is one book that has stayed as fresh and young as when it was created.

      Wilde's way with an aphorism is brilliant, and not just Dorian, but Sir Henry Wooton in particular are fully rounded characters, and perfect foils for Wilde's wit and almost casual brilliance.

      I wondered whether the movie representations would change the book for me, but all they have done is remind me how little of Wilde's inimitable style has ever transferred to the big screen.

      Beautifully written, sharp and incisive and strangely grotesque in places, I was immersed for the duration. A true classic.
    • 4/5
      There's something in nineteenth-century British literature that I am drawn to—there is a certain musicality or lyricism to it that I love, despite its inspirations often being delusional, fantastical and at times even fetishistic. So it is of little surprise that I found The Picture of Dorian Gray a sweeping read, and one that I had little dissatisfactions with, stylistically.When painter Basil Hallward first sets his eyes upon Dorian Gray, he is a young, captivating soul of speechless beauty. Combined with his social standing, his allure sets his name aflame across countless of social spheres within England. The story begins when Basil makes Dorian his muse, and asks him to sit for a portrait that, little do they both know, will become much more than the painter's magnum opus. Lord Henry, a wealthy friend of Basil, quickly enters the scene, instilling in the Adonis a roaring, dizzying passion for life: “the few words that Basil’s friend had said to him…had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before, but that he felt now was vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses” (21). It is the whimsical, at times paradoxical musings of Lord Henry that transform Dorian Gray, whose adoration for his own portrait become the root of the story’s unfoldment.This was my first proper exposure to Wilde’s work, and it surely was a pleasant experience. I do not know the reason as to why this was his only novel, but it certainly encapsulates his interest in the Aesthetic Movement (“Art for Art’s Sake”). Filled with a rather spiritualistic love for art, humor, and thrill it makes for a lovely (and easy) read, though it lacks the depth, the grittiness, that I was looking for. But this may very well be as a consequence of its loyalty to the values of Wilde’s movement, where art existed free of social, moral and even logical obligations. This novel lacks substance or a core, but ultimately our own conclusions, our own thoughts emerge out of it to appease our own sense of what good literature should be.
    • 4/5
      I was kind of underwhelmed by this one. Some interesting ideas were brought up, but the story itself wasn't as riveting as I thought it would be.
    • 5/5
      I never really wanted to read any Oscar Wilde books; they just didn't interest me. But while I was learning to use CeltX script software, "The Importance of Being Earnest" was included as a free example text. I was hooked immediately.Several plays later, I finally pick up "The Picture of Dorian Gray". It has fast become one of my favorite novels of all time.With each of the characters playing to an extreme of Wilde's personality, rather than getting a picture of Dorian Gray, you get a picture of Wilde's life. And what a rich life it was. Of course, I've been mildly infatuated with the Regency/Victorian since I read "Pride and Prejudice", but Dorian Gray succesfully turned that infatuation into what one might call an obsession.Between the vivid and beautiful prose, the witty dialogue and character relationships, and the compellingly simple story itself, I couldn't put this book down. It's a great read even if you don't like Victorian lit or history--a great read even if you're not a fan of Oscar Wilde--and a great read even if you don't like history. And, of course, if you like any or all of thsoe things, it's an *awesome* read.I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
    • 5/5
      Amazing read!
    • 5/5
      It's a classic for a reason - good book. This is my first introduction to Oscar Wilde, but I have many more on the reading list, plus biographies, which I'm looking forward to!
    • 4/5
      "How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "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 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!"

      And so it begins, the descent of Dorian Gray. A gothic horror that deals in manipulation, class, the adoration of youth and the price of sin. To name but a few of the themes that prevail in this book. For me the book really takes off in the second half and is worth persevering because the first half, although not dull may be considered slow by some. The description of Dorians trip to the opium den is a particularly vivid metaphor for his downward spiral into sin.
    • 4/5
      A young egotistic man whispers a prayer and gets exactly what he asked for.How does one even begin to review this book? I disagreed vehemently with just about everything it proposed, and yet because of the writing, I continued to listen. Lord Henry. What are we to do with him? I've heard it proposed that he is meant to be Satan tempting Dorian, and there is an element of that, but to me he seemed more of a man who likes to hear himself talk and shock others, but doesn't really believe what he is saying. Dorian is loathsome. Innocent my foot. He latches on to the things Lord Henry says because it is in his nature already. Best described as a sociopath in my opinion. A sociopath who develops into a psychopath as easily as he puts on his gloves, and he wears well fitting gloves.What I would really like to know, is how much of Oscar Wilde's beliefs are in this book. Or, did he write it to show the absurdity of the ideas propounded? The misogyny and cynicism within are breathtaking. Were they his? He had a difficult time of it being who he was in the time he lived; did he develop these views to survive? Now I think I must go read a biography of Oscar Wilde.
    • 5/5
      I was pleasantly surprised at how compelling I found this narrative, despite its age.
    • 4/5
      A parable denouncing hedonism, vanity, and youth worship. It's a thickly drawn portrait with a rather obvious device to present the perils of hedonistic flippancy. It's short and worth reading for its impact on literature, art and society.