The Picture of Dorian Gray

About the book

Dorian Gray discovers the force of his own beauty through a portrait painted by Basil Hallward and through Lord Henry's seductive talk about youth and pleasure. A wish to escape the visible effects of time gives that fascination a disturbing direction. Wilde combines drawing-room brilliance with secrecy, moral evasion, and Gothic atmosphere, allowing charming speech to become part of the danger. The relationship between a person and an image raises questions about what appearance reveals and what it can conceal. Dorian's encounters test the distance between treating life as an aesthetic experience and recognising other people as more than impressions. The novel's wit keeps judgment lively and uncertain, while its central image makes consequences impossible to reduce to a matter of reputation.

• Beauty and appearance
• Influence
• Moral responsibility

Why read it

For the uneasy relationship between dazzling conversation and the darker uses to which its ideas are put.

English text