The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

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Basil Hallward paints a portrait of the beautiful young Dorian Gray, and Basil's friend Lord Henry Wotton fills Dorian with the idea that beauty and pleasure are all that matter. Dorian wishes that the portrait would age instead of him, and the wish comes true. He cruelly drops the actress Sibyl Vane and then lives a long libertine life while the painting records every sin on its face. Basil is killed, and in the end Dorian turns on the portrait itself.

Where it happens

London The Victorian city where the story is set.¹
Langham Hotel, London Stoddart dined here with Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle on 30 August 1889 and commissioned the novella.¹
Ottawa Where Wilde met the artist Frances Richards in 1882.¹
Dublin Wilde's birthplace and the home of his Anglo-Irish parents.²

Through time

1887A December portrait sitting gives Wilde the idea for the plot.¹
1889Stoddart commissions a novella from Wilde at the Langham Hotel.¹
1890The shorter version appears in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in July.¹
1891The novel-length version with Wilde's preface is published in April.¹
1895Wilde is convicted of gross indecency.²
2011The Belknap Press publishes an uncensored edition from the original typescript.¹

Who is in it, and behind it

Oscar Wilde author

Irish writer (1854 to 1900) for whom this was his only novel.¹²

Dorian Gray character

The young man whose portrait ages while he stays beautiful.¹

Basil Hallward character

The artist who paints Dorian's portrait and is infatuated with his beauty.¹

Lord Henry Wotton character

The aristocrat whose hedonism enthralls Dorian.¹

Sibyl Vane character

A young actress of Shakespeare who is courted by Dorian and then rejected.¹

Frances Richards subject

The Canadian artist whose portrait of Wilde in 1887 inspired the plot.¹

J. M. Stoddart patron

The Lippincott's editor who commissioned the story in 1889 and cut about 500 words from it.¹³

What it is about

Art for art's sake

Wilde's preface treats art as an aim in itself and says all art is quite useless.¹³

Beauty and sensation as the goal

Lord Henry's view that beauty and sensual fulfilment are all that matter drives Dorian's choices.¹

A double life

Dorian keeps a spotless face while the portrait records his sins.¹³

Books are not moral or immoral

The preface says books are only well or badly written, a reply to the critics of 1890.¹

In its own words

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

Preface. Wilde's preface answers his critics. Read on

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

I. The novel's opening scene. Read on

“How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait

II. Dorian makes his wish. Read on

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful

II. Lord Henry's creed on temptation. Read on

One would have said that there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth.

VII. The portrait first changes. Read on

His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. What was it, he wondered

X. The book that shapes Dorian's life. Read on

What was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood

XIV. The portrait shows the blood of a crime. Read on

When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty

XX. The final image of the portrait and the body. Read on

The shape of the book

21 chapters, 78,906 words. Point at a bar.

How it came to be here

Wilde was inspired by a portrait sitting in December 1887. A shorter version ran in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in July 1890, after the editor cut about 500 words without his approval. Critics attacked it, and Wilde answered with a preface of epigrams on art. The novel-length version appeared in April 1891. It was long under-read, and it is now among the best-known Gothic novels. The site carries the Standard Ebooks text, which restores the novel version with Wilde's preface.

Sources

Text: Standard Ebooks edition, transcribed from Project Gutenberg (79,057 words). Standard Ebooks markup CC0 1.0; text public domain in the USA.

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