Name: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Rating: 4.172642585551331 (2630 reviews)
ISBN: 9780497253103

ICON Reference

Webster's Thesaurus Edition

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Kosi H

lola

Maurine | INFP | Taurus | French

Abigail F

Lyndsey McIntyre 

Kat Albanese

Alina

Macy HB

Jaylee

Haley Paluszak

Scarly

In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.

moira

Iris van der zanden

Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for. 

Bailey Drew

The birds that were singing in the dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.

Amalie Elisabeth

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.

Amelia Reinertsen

I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. My God, Harry, how I worship her!

Amanda Shameem

Karolina 

erin alise 

Draculelle

Oscar Wilde

Roy Thomas

Sebastian Fiumara

Retells in comic book format Oscar Wilde's story of an incredibly handsome young man in Victorian England who retains his youthful appearance over the years while his portrait reflects both his age and evil soul as he pursues a life of decadence and corruption.

Well I liked this better than I did when forced to read it in high school, but this was still a bit of a slog for me to get through. 

The plot is one that I'm sure mainly people know as it is a story that is referenced pretty often. After seeing a painting of himself, Dorian Gray wishes that the painting would bare the brunt of his sins and age so that he could forever remain like the painting.

This story starts off slow as we get to know the three main characters. Basil is an artist who has painted a picture of Dorian and has thus become obsessed with him. Lord Henry is Basil's friend who has a world view that Dorian finds fascinating and becomes enthralled with. Dorian is desperate to learn more about Lord Henry's view which are hedonistic to say the least. Soon, Dorian has fallen into those temptations. 

It's only about halfway through when the story picked up for me and really started to take off as Dorian's decent into hedonism begins and the plot finally starts to take some shape. But then afterwards, there is a chapter in particular that really bogs it down and slows everything down again. Chapter 11 was pointless. Forget it when reading. 

There is a lot to talk about here from the hedonism to the morals, but also the gay. For it's time, this book is so gay and Wilde pushed what was done at the time. 

I enjoyed seeing how Dorian's changing lifestyle changed and affected him. I think it is still a good story for today that people could learn from.

Tim Pendry

Two sides of Oscar Wilde seem to be in creative tension in this classic horror tale - the showman literary extrovert, the man who launders witticisms and French literary fashion into British high society, and the moralist 'malgre lui' questioning not art or beauty but high society's ethical compass. The first side is dominant here, perhaps at times to the point of risking tiresomeness as 'bon mot' after 'bon mot' is thrown into the ring to entertain us. Similarly the new decadence of Huysmans 'A Rebours' is translated into English society in a way that can only be called derivative. This is Wilde (1890) before his stunningly witty plays and his fall from grace but after he had proven that he could carry a story. Its importance remains because its scandalous implication of homosexual relationships was brave for the time. It cannot be detached from what happened later. Wilde appears to live behind a mask but, unlike the rest of society, he made the mistake of allowing himself to appear from behind it too obviously. There is one passage where he even appears to predict the conditions for his own downfall in his exposure of how society operates in reality. The book is not as well written or structured as we have often been led to believe. It falters in its exposition at times. However, Wilde is superb at characterisation, creating 'real people' playing their masks within that late Victorian model of high status men caught up in the dark and impossible. We saw this with Jekyll &amp; Hyde and we will see this again with Dracula - men apparently in command of their situation are destabilised by some coded mythic entry of the abnormal: the split personality, the dark side separated into an art object or the vampire. There is no hint of homosexuality in the other two novels, although the first shows us an implicit loneliness behind the mask. The second gives us male bonding against external threats. Wilde's novel allegorises the secret self of one type of Victorian male in a most scandalous manner. The radical cynicism of Lord Henry and the romantic ethic of Basil Hallward might be seen as the two sides of Wilde himself. The first is a fashionable salonista but by aristocratic right whereas Wilde is the man accepted into society only on his epigrams. Lord Henry is stable, Wilde's fame is not. Hallward, who creates a pure beauty that supernaturally reflects goodness and evil, is a shadowier figure who comes to stand for what is right and good and pays the price. Dorian Gray is caught between a superficial 'social truth' and the 'soul' (an aesthetic view of the ethical). Gray is very young when his journey starts out. Indeed, the story should be seen as one of very young men maturing. Gray is impressionable. He adopts the aesthetic of pure beauty but abandons goodness because Lord Henry will not speak for it and Hallward is absent, engrossed in his art. Society (which Lord Henry can aristocratically play like an instrument of which he is a virtuoso) is neither moral nor immoral but amoral. It just 'is' from a position of wealth and authority. Hidden in the text are the seeds of Wilde's very peculiar version of socialism. There are moments when we feel sorry for Gray as the creation of his situation even as we recognise his behaviour to be monstrous. We would consider him a sociopath today. His story raises that hoary old question of whether sociopaths are made or are fated. If made, Lord Henry is in the dock here. So, the infamous picture which torments Gray but insufficiently to have him change his ways, drifts him towards the dark side just as Jekyll is drifted by Hyde into his darkness. The implication is that the good has to be worked at and that a man without internal restraints tends naturally to evil acts. No wonder Bram Stoker later proved useful in taking this late Victorian anxiety, 'othering' the evil so that it was no longer inside the male but outside and so capable of being fought and fought, at that, by a band of brothers. It is the switch from introvert fearful decadence to extrovert late imperial honour. As to the novel, a dispassionate view would note the forced aestheticism and the melodrama but still recognise that Wilde has captured something deeper about the late nineteenth century upper class male condition, made more existential by an underlying male-on-male sexual desire. An innocent could read the book and just see a disturbing horror tale without the gay sub-text but many sophisticated contemporaries could see that sub-text well enough and we can see it today. In his 1895 trial, the book was used as evidence of perversion. Passages from it were read in court. It is the courage of Wilde in attempting to find a way to express his inner self (even if the literary quality has been subsequently exaggerated out of sentiment) that strikes one at the end. It is the people in the novel who matter. There is compassion lurking under the cold wit.

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition? includes a glossary and reader?s notes to help the modern reader contend with Wilde?s many allusions and his complex approach to the human condition.Oscar Wilde?s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, first appeared in 1891. Dorian Gray, a handsome young man, falls in with a group of ?friends,? 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 Gray?s internal ruin. Dorian himself, however, remains as young and unspoiled as the day he first sat for the painting. Wilde?s 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.

Picture of Dorian Gray

Enjoyed it, but could’ve done with less word vomit.

Ethan Hussie

Classic / British English An artist paints a picture of the young and handsome Dorian Gray. When he sees it, Dorian makes a wish that changes his life. As he grows older, his face stays young and handsome. But the picture changes. Why can't Dorian show it to anybody? What is its terrible secret? This Pack contains a Book and MP3

PENGUIN READERS 4: PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, THE BOOK AND MP3 PACK

Maldita obra de arte. Mi libro favorito por lejos. La narrativa y la expresión es exquisita. El análisis psicológico y la profundidad que tiene cada personaje lo convierte en un libro super profundo. Cada vez que lo relees encontras mas significados, referencias, metaforas... Sin palabras, amé este libro

Magali

Enthralled by a portrait of himself, young Dorian Gray makes a Faustian bargain to exchange his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Thus he is able to indulge in his desires, as only the portrait bears the traces of his decadence and becomes a nightmarish picture of his soul. Edited with an Introduction by Robert Mighall Preface by Peter Ackroyd

i fucking love this book so much its genuinely the book that got me into classics

THIS BOOK GOES HARD. also, it's basically a Victorian precursor to American Psycho. Love.

Katelyn Caillouet

The Picture of Dorian Gray, the only novel by Oscar Wilde, was first published in 1890. A substantially revised and expanded edition was published in April 1891. For the new edition, Wilde revised the content of the novel's existing chapters, divided the final chapter into two chapters, and created six entirely new additional chapters. Whereas the original edition of the novel contains 13 chapters, the revised edition of the novel contains 20 chapters. The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Dorian is selected for his remarkable physical beauty, and Basil becomes strongly infatuated with Dorian, believing that his beauty is responsible for a new mode of art. Talking in Basil's garden, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new kind of hedonism, Lord Henry suggests that the only thing worth pursuing in life is beauty, and the fulfillment of the senses. Realising that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian cries out, wishing that the portrait Basil has painted of him would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, subsequently plunging him into a sequence of debauched acts. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, each sin being displayed as a new sign of aging on the portrait. The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered one of the last works of classic gothic horror fiction with a strong Faustian theme. It deals with the artistic movement of the decadents, and homosexuality, both of which caused some controversy when the book was first published. However, in modern times, the book has been referred to as "one of the modern classics of Western literature.

Dark, elegant, and endlessly quotable. A haunting tale of vanity, decay, and the price of staying beautiful.

Tanishq Khandelwal

Excellent book. I heard so much about it before beginning it and I'm happy I finally took the time to read it. Its writing is both aesthetically pleasing and philosophically rich. The story is concise and dynamic with an ever-evolving plotline that keeps you well-engaged while also building on foundational themes. I had some serious reflections and contemplations to reconcile during this reading, but it was a phenomenal experience that I would recommend to most anyone. Highly recommend, 10/10.

Kay so Queso

Joseph Bristow

I reread this book thanks to Sarah Snook blowing me away in Kip Williams' one-actor play adaptation on Broadway, and I am so glad I did. Oscar Wilde's writing is sensual and witty. Its explorations of influence, moral relativism, art, and hedonism are timeless, but I think they are especially relevant in an age where corporatism and social media rule, encouraging us to both indulge and repress ourselves to excess. And, of course, this book is gay as hell...

alice

except for winter and marie, no one is more upset about this than i am...i expected this to be a 5 star read...

Lets begin with the story itself...I love it! I actually do really like this book! I like the writing and I like the themes, and I love the explorations in this! The dynamic between Basil and Dorian is so interesting, and I like how it delves into vanity and objectification of beauty, making it something to use instead of something to have or admire. So the book itself I would probably give 4.5 stars! I did really and truly enjoy it!

Now...the 0.5 stars...how do I explain this one...I can overlook many things and I can overlook many kinds of self insert by authors...but this one is so...weird.

I knew before starting this that Wilde was on trial for "homosexual activity" and that this book was used as evidence against him. This part is obviously bad, and no one should be put on trial for being gay. What I didn't know was that part of that trial was about his sexual encounters with boys as young as 13 (and even more specifically the one boy who just turned 16). Now...knowing this really changed things for me. The before, really interesting, exploration of the desire to perserve youthful beauty and their dynamic with Basil looking at young Dorian as an object he is not just allowed but almost required to use for his own benefit, turned into a really weird..."why would he write this"

I do not believe you can ever fully separate the art from the artist, especially when they are alive, but even when they are dead. And so knowing this overlap between the book and his personal beliefs and his life...it icks me out tbh.

Stas

except for winter and marie, no one is more upset about this than i am...i expected this to be a 5 star read...

Lets begin with the story itself...I love it! I actually do really like this book! I like the writing and I like the themes, and I love the explorations in this! The dynamic between Basil and Dorian is so interesting, and I like how it delves into vanity and objectification of beauty, making it something to use instead of something to have or admire. So the book itself I would probably give 4.5 stars! I did really and truly enjoy it!

Now...the 0.5 stars...how do I explain this one...I can overlook many things and I can overlook many kinds of self insert by authors...but this one is so...weird.
I knew before starting this that Wilde was on trial for "homosexual activity" and that this book was used as evidence against him. This part is obviously bad, and no one should be put on trial for being gay. What I didn't know was that part of that trial was about his sexual encounters with boys as young as 13 (and even more specifically the one boy who just turned 16). Now...knowing this really changed things for me. The before, really interesting, exploration of the desire to perserve youthful beauty and their dynamic with Basil looking at young Dorian as an object he is not just allowed but almost required to use for his own benefit, turned into a really weird..."why would he write this"

I do not believe you can ever fully separate the art from the artist, especially when they are alive, but even when they are dead. And so knowing this overlap between the book and his personal beliefs and his life...it icks me out tbh.

The Portrait of Dorian Gray was first published in 1890 by Oscar Wilde. It's seen as one of the first Gothic horror fiction stories and it was criticized as scandalous and immoral! This is the special Reader's Choice Edition which has been carefully designed for Dorian Gray and Oscar Wilde fans for extra easy reading. Plot summary: This classic book is about a young man named Dorian Gray. He is the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward who thinks he is very good looking, with a pure beauty. One thing leads to another and Dorian embraces a new hedonism with Basil and a new group of friends. He begins to believe that the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty, fulfillment of the senses, and pleasures of the flesh... This is an excellent book for yourself and your own library. Or, you can give "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" (Reader's Choice Edition) away as a special gift.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (Reader's Choice Edition)

Portrait of Dorian Gray

Delightful exploration of what happens to our humanity when we're shielded from the consequences of our actions. 

Chloe 

An exquisitely beautiful young man in Victorian England retains his youthful and innocent appearance over the years while his portrait reflects both his age and evil soul as he pursues a life of decadence and corruption.

#G584

i read this back in 2022 and i need to re-read it because my memories tell me i liked it more than just 3 stars so idk why i gave it just 3

micaela

The Picture of Dorian Gray, moral fantasy novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde, published in an early form in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. The novel, the only one written by Wilde, had six additional chapters when it was released as a book in 1891. The work, an archetypal tale of a young man who purchases eternal youth at the expense of his soul, was a romantic exposition of Wilde's own Aestheticism. The story begins in the art studio of Basil Hallward, who is discussing a current painting with his witty and amoral friend Lord Henry Wotton. Henry thinks that the painting, a portrait of an extraordinarily beautiful young man, should be displayed, but Basil disagrees, fearing that his obsession with the portrait's subject, Dorian Gray, can be seen in the work. Dorian then arrives, and he is fascinated as Henry explains his belief that one should live life to the fullest by indulging one's impulses. Henry also points out that beauty and youth are fleeting, and Dorian declares that he would give his soul if the portrait were to grow old and wrinkled while he remained young and handsome. Basil gives the painting to Dorian. Henry decides to take on the project of molding Dorian's personality. A few weeks later, Dorian tells Henry that he has fallen in love with an actress, Sibyl Vane, because of her great beauty and acting talent. Henry and Basil go with him to a dingy theatre to see Sibyl, but her performance is terrible. Sibyl explains to Dorian that now that she knows what real love is, she can no longer pretend to be in love on stage. Dorian is repulsed and wants nothing further to do with her. When he returns home, he sees a cruel expression on the face of his portrait, and he decides to seek Sibyl's forgiveness. Henry arrives the next day, however, with news that Sibyl committed suicide the previous night, and he convinces Dorian that there is no reason for him to feel badly about it. Dorian has the portrait removed to his attic. Henry sends Dorian a book that he finds poisonous and fascinating (critics have suggested that it might be Against the Grain by Joris-Karl Huysmans). Under the book's influence, Dorian spends the next 18 years in the pursuit of capricious and sybaritic excess, and he becomes increasingly drawn to evil. He frequently visits the portrait, noting the signs of aging and of corruption that appear, though he himself remains unblemished.

All Time Classics

The only crime of this book is misogyny and Mr. Henry

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirredamidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or themore delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was hiscustom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweetand honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bearthe burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds inflight flitted across the long tussore-silk 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-facedpainters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to conveythe sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through thelong unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of thestraggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London waslike the bourdon note of a distant organ.In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a youngman of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting theartist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, suchpublic excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, asmile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly startedup, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within hisbrain 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. "Youmust certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The Academy 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 seethe 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 thatused to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. "No, I won't send it anywhere."Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin bluewreaths 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 paintersare! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to wantto throw it awa

Complete

I liked it, of course. I love all the gayness and the repressed (and not so repressed) sexuality. The first part is amazing but after that, some time skips were a bit confusing.

LIMEKI 

Your experience of this book may or may not be improved by understanding the context it is set in (both fictional and the author's). For that matter mine came loaded with annotations. I did lose interest in some parts that seemed to drag on, but overall a curious read full of witticisms by Henry and co. that commentate on life... some ringing true (for better or for worse) in modern times.

Throckmorton

going into this blind made me feel like i was a victorian seeing ankle for the first time. dang! men are crazy. 

Ianna Chia

The picture of Dorian Gray

Maureen

"We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!"

***

The amount of vanity in this book is insane. You wouldn't think someone so absorbed like Dorian Gray could exist in this world, but he did. All because Wilde made it possible. The prose is so lovely and there were plenty of great quotes! I'm glad I finally got around to reading this book. The characters' mindsets are unlike any I've ever read before, so it was interesting to read their unique outlook on life.

Angie 

Ghofran Mustafa 

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

I'd stay up late for the last week with stacked cups of tea, reading and thinking about Dorian..
The story of the novel is known, but this does not mean that it will not surprise you. I read it with a friend of mine, and we talked about it a lot, and about the film adaptation, "which I considered as a distortion of the novel."

 As is evident when you read it, you will see in it,
 External beauty, narcissism, people and society's view, their reverence for appearances...
 The characters, I wish there were more details about them, about their lives and actions, especially Lord Henry. And how it affected Dorian's personality, to the point where they became similar, with a negative impact on everyone around them.
And more about the painter too.

It made me think and raised a lot of questions that I asked myself over the course of the chapters, but the biggest question remains; Was Dorian the victim of his friend, Lord Henry, who corrupted his soul, or was he like that from the beginning?

Anna 

nakonec jsem si řekla, že kde to půjde, budu u klasik psát normální recenze, na které jsem zvyklá, a u kterých se můžu normálně rozepsat :) 
✩
Obraz Doriana Graye jsem četla jako další knihu do povinné četby, tentokrát jsem ale předem věděla, že se nemusím bát toho, že by se kniha nedala číst. a přesně tak tomu i bylo.
doriana graye jsem měla přečteného za 5 dní, do děje jsem se jednoduše dostala a čtení mě bavilo. s tímto příběhem jsem se seznámila poprvé, nikdy jsem nevěděla, o čem to přesně je. musím říct, že jsem byla lehce zmatená tím, jak málo se tam toho doopravdy dělo. kniha je plná filozofických myšlenek místy tak moc, že převažují děj. i tak se to ale čte rychle, hlavně kvůli té děsivé atmosféře, které se nám dostane zhruba v polovině knihy.
oblíbila jsem si vedlejší postavy, například basila, malíře, který obraz doriana graye stvořil. líbilo se mi vykreslení tehdejší šlechty a autorův výsměch mnoha tehdejším tradicím či myšlenkám. 
další zajímavostí je, že v knize se objevují homosexuální podtóny, takže byla kniha dříve hodně cenzurovaná. 
✩
4*/5*, tuhle knížku rozhodně doporučuji přečíst jak k maturitě, tak klidně i 'jenom tak'. myslím, že se líbí snad každému z mého okolí, kdo ji četl :)

chaca

SO GOOD. it was fascinating to see how dorian’s behavior change throughout the years. would definitely re-read it.

«Degeneramos en espantosas marionetas, obsesionados por el recuerdo de pasiones ante las que tuvimos demasiado miedo, y ante las exquisitas tentaciones a las que no tuvimos el coraje de ceder. ¡Juventud! ¡Juventud! ¡No hay absolutamente nada en el mundo más que la juventud!» Una piedra angular en los debates entre la ética y la estética, en las relaciones que mantienen el bien y el mal, el alma y el cuerpo, el arte y la vida.

El Retrato de Dorian Gray

Andrea Morales

what a RIDE !!!
definitivamente uno de mis clásicos favoritos, I was very intrigued even in the slower moments throughout the entire book, and the ending was ??!!! and I loved it.
also the gay subtext was chef’s kiss mmmm

“no hay libros morales ni inmorales. los libros están bien escritos o no lo están.”

imagine giving your crush a potrait painted by you which curses him with eternal youth and then he kills you 😭😭 oh basil you're loved

The Picture of Dorian Gray Webster's Thesaurus Edition

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