SparkNotes: The Picture of Dorian Gray: Plot Overview The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde Context Character List In the stately London home of his aunt, Lady Brandon, the well-known artist Basil Hallward meets Dorian Gray. Dorian is a cultured, wealthy, and impossibly beautiful young man who immediately captures Basil’s artistic imagination. Dorian sits for several portraits, and Basil often depicts him as an ancient Greek hero or a mythological figure. When the novel opens, the artist is completing his first portrait of Dorian as he truly is, but, as he admits to his friend Lord Henry Wotton, the painting disappoints him because it reveals too much of his feeling for his subject. Lord Henry, a famous wit who enjoys scandalizing his friends by celebrating youth, beauty, and the selfish pursuit of pleasure, disagrees, claiming that the portrait is Basil’s masterpiece. Dorian arrives at the studio, and Basil reluctantly introduces him to Lord Henry, who he fears will have a damaging influence on the impressionable, young Dorian. Basil’s fears are well founded; before the end of their first conversation, Lord Henry upsets Dorian with a speech about the transient nature of beauty and youth.

Worried that these, his most impressive characteristics, are fading day by day, Dorian curses his portrait, which he believes will one day remind him of the beauty he will have lost. In a fit of distress, he pledges his soul if only the painting could bear the burden of age and infamy, allowing him to stay forever young. After Dorian’s outbursts, Lord Henry reaffirms his desire to own the portrait; however, Basil insists the portrait belongs to Dorian. Over the next few weeks, Lord Henry’s influence over Dorian grows stronger. The youth becomes a disciple of the “new Hedonism” and proposes to live a life dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure. He falls in love with Sibyl Vane, a young actress who performs in a theater in London’s slums. He adores her acting; she, in turn, refers to him as “Prince Charming” and refuses to heed the warnings of her brother, James Vane, that Dorian is no good for her. Overcome by her emotions for Dorian, Sibyl decides that she can no longer act, wondering how she can pretend to love on the stage now that she has experienced the real thing.

Dorian, who loves Sibyl because of her ability to act, cruelly breaks his engagement with her. After doing so, he returns home to notice that his face in Basil’s portrait of him has changed: it now sneers. Frightened that his wish for his likeness in the painting to bear the ill effects of his behavior has come true and that his sins will be recorded on the canvas, he resolves to make amends with Sibyl the next day. The following afternoon, however, Lord Henry brings news that Sibyl has killed herself. At Lord Henry’s urging, Dorian decides to consider her death a sort of artistic triumph—she personified tragedy—and to put the matter behind him. Meanwhile, Dorian hides his portrait in a remote upper room of his house, where no one other than he can watch its transformation. Lord Henry gives Dorian a book that describes the wicked exploits of a nineteenth-century Frenchman; it becomes Dorian’s bible as he sinks ever deeper into a life of sin and corruption. He lives a life devoted to garnering new experiences and sensations with no regard for conventional standards of morality or the consequences of his actions. Eighteen years pass.

Dorian’s reputation suffers in circles of polite London society, where rumors spread regarding his scandalous exploits. His peers nevertheless continue to accept him because he remains young and beautiful. The figure in the painting, however, grows increasingly wizened and hideous. On a dark, foggy night, Basil Hallward arrives at Dorian’s home to confront him about the rumors that plague his reputation. The two argue, and Dorian eventually offers Basil a look at his (Dorian’s) soul. He shows Basil the now-hideous portrait, and Hallward, horrified, begs him to repent. Dorian claims it is too late for penance and kills Basil in a fit of rage. In order to dispose of the body, Dorian employs the help of an estranged friend, a doctor, whom he blackmails. The night after the murder, Dorian makes his way to an opium den, where he encounters James Vane, who attempts to avenge Sibyl’s death. Dorian escapes to his country estate. While entertaining guests, he notices James Vane peering in through a window, and he becomes wracked by fear and guilt. When a hunting party accidentally shoots and kills Vane, Dorian feels safe again.

He resolves to amend his life but cannot muster the courage to confess his crimes, and the painting now reveals his supposed desire to repent for what it is—hypocrisy. In a fury, Dorian picks up the knife he used to stab Basil Hallward and attempts to destroy the painting. There is a crash, and his servants enter to find the portrait, unharmed, showing Dorian Gray as a beautiful young man. On the floor lies the body of their master—an old man, horribly wrinkled and disfigured, with a knife plunged into his heart. More Help The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC NEWS There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error The Picture of Dorian Gray ( 1945 ) Not Rated | A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.

Director: Albert Lewin (screen play), Oscar Wilde (based upon the novel by) Stars: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 34 titles created 31 May 2012 a list of 28 titles created 21 Jul 2013 a list of 41 titles created 22 Sep 2013 a list of 24 titles created 21 Mar 2015 a list of 30 titles created 2 months ago Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) 7.6/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins & 2 nominations. See more awards » Photos Edit Storyline In 1886, in the Victorian London, the corrupt Lord Henry Wotton meets the pure Dorian Gray posing for talented painter Basil Hallward.

Basil paints Dorian's portrait and gives the beautiful painting and an Egyptian sculpture of a cat to him while Henry corrupts his mind and soul telling that Dorian should seek pleasure in life. Dorian wishes that his portrait could age instead of him. Dorian goes to a side show in the Two Turtles in the poor neighborhood of London and he falls in love with the singer Sibyl Vane. Dorian decides to get married with her and tells to Lord Henry that convinces him to test the honor of Sibyl. Dorian Gray leaves Sibyl and travels abroad and when he returns to London, Lord Henry tells him that Sibyl committed suicide for love. Along the years, Dorian's friends age while he is still the same, but his picture discloses his evilness and corruptive life. Can he still have salvation or is his soul trapped in the doomed painting? Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil See All (212) » Taglines: His life was a muddy morass into which he dragged all who knew him! Such was Dorian Gray, the man who wanted eternal youth, and bartered his soul to get it!

See more » Genres: 3 March 1945 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray See more » Filming Locations: Mono (Western Electric Sound System) Color: Did You Know? Trivia Basil Rathbone campaigned in vain for the part of Lord Henry and believed that his typecasting as Sherlock Holmes was the reason he failed to get it. MGM's loaning of Rathbone to Universal to play Holmes was very profitable for the studio, another reason for not casting him. See more » Goofs When Dorian is watching the entertainer who resembles Buddha, the line which marks the separators in canvas behind the entertainer's head changes. See more » Quotes Lord Henry Wotton : What is it that has really happened? Someone has killed herself who loved you. I wish I had had such an experience. The women who have admired me, and there have been some, have always insisted on living long after I've ceased to care for them or them for me. (Netherlands) – See all my reviews Elegant, atmospheric and measured. I suppose anyone brought up on fin de siecle Hollywood would interpret that as `slow and boring'. But this was Hollywood tackling an intellectual piece with, well, intellect.

I must confess that the thought of a 1945 Hollywood attempt at Oscar Wilde did not appeal. Memories of one or two previous efforts at English literary classics set alarm bells ringing. But this was in a class of its own. Beautifully photographed in black and white, apart from a couple shots of the painting itself, the aesthetics shimmer. I wasn't that convinced about some of the London scenes, especially the low-life portrayal of the East End. The opium den and the `Two Turtles', where Gray first meets Sibyl Vane, look rather too genteel. Compare this view of such places with those created by David Lean, just a couple of years later, in `Oliver Twist'. And this, in a sense, detracts from the depths to which Gray descends in order to be forever youthful and live life with scant regard for others. And in many years of watching BBC Victorian costume dramas I don't recall seeing such outfits on the backs of London's society ladies! However some of the other detail is first class. In particular Sir Thomas's decision to remain at table (`never could resist Aunt Agatha's quails') in spite of Lord Henry's outrageous comments rings true through to today.

As the script had it `think like a Liberal, eat like a Tory'. The acting is excellent with Hurd Hatfield's portrayal quite remarkable in that he wears the same expression virtually throughout, in order, no doubt, to conceal his true emotions. George Sanders, as Lord Henry, steals every scene he's in thanks to a rapid delivery of Wilde's witticisms that would have Groucho Marx and Woody Allen in awe. Angela Lansbury is, perhaps, a little too demure for a theatrical singer from the East End but, no doubt, this was a result of director's orders. Essential viewing for anyone interested in the history of film. 65 of 67 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Search eText, Read Online, Study, Discuss. Review and Analysis Gangster style Maybe the funniest treatment of the book, ever. Enjoy! Posted By jlb4tlb at Tue 21 Jan 2014, 7:03 PM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 0 Replies Lord Henry's speech:goals and means. Lord Henry's aims (goals) I shall not judge.

"To be beautiful and young above all." It's his actual speech that is brilliant. I find his proposition in chapter 2: "Youth! Youth! Youth! There is nothing in the world but youth." He backs up his argument with that same paragraph in chapter 2 directed to Dorian and with two different paragraphs in chapter 1 directed to Basil. Chapter 2 Henry to Dorian: "Be young! It doesn't lasts long and is worth having. When youth go beauty goes and beauty is worth having because"... and he gives two reasons. Chapter 1 Henry to Basil: Paragraph 1: Beauty vs ugly Beauty vs intelligence Beauty = stupid = good (moral and estheatics are equalled...to be beautifu is a good thing a moral thing.) Paragraph 2: adds the time factor. This beauty which is so good doesn't last because we all try to be intelligent and well informed and therefore become ugly. Basically he ties beauty to a moral value. If to be beautiful is a moral thing wouldn't you do anything in the world (means) to achieve that goal? All his actions are justified for a higher goal, to be happy. Beauty brings happiness.

I feel like if oscar wilde could have sta down one day and said, "Beauty, for or against. Discuss." You try it...try being a lawyer that has to defend that position in a debate....fascinating the way Oscar does it...whether you lik his goals or not...that is none of my business. About his goals....everyone is free to decide what values will make him or her happy. One can only debate the means used to achieve his goals. And his writing style, which in my opinion is timeless and perfection. Posted By Akaruihi at Fri 8 Oct 2010, 2:08 PM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 0 Replies Original Picture of Dorian Grey My friend and I have been trying to locate the original Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, but to no avail. A simple Google search for that topic doesn't seem to provide much, and it's hard to go on hearsay from Google anyway. Does anyone know what I could search for? Or better yet, do you know where I could find a copy or download? Assistance is very much appreciated. Thank you.

:) Posted By Dameon Grey at Fri 14 May 2010, 2:57 AM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 1 Reply Questions about the Picture of Dorian Gray What was the book that Lord Henry gave to Dorian Gray that fascinated dorian so much? What is the book about? Why was dorian so afraid that people view his painting? How did Dorian meet Sybil Vane? Posted By lokariototal at Mon 30 Nov 2009, 12:50 AM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 2 Replies Explanation of an epigram from "Portrait of Dorian Gray" For those of you familiar with this novel, I'm inquiring the meaning of Lord Henry Wotton's "The world goes to the altar of its own accord" in chapter 18. Thanks. *I meant "Picture of Dorian Gray" in the title* Posted By Fruit at Tue 20 Oct 2009, 8:59 PM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 1 Reply Oscar Wilde Hi,everyone! I just want to know your opinion!) Is The Picture of Dorian Gray a moral or immoral book?

Thank you=) Posted By Blue_sky at Wed 14 Oct 2009, 3:05 PM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 3 Replies film Hey, has anyone seen the film Dorian Gray? Is it any good?:goof: Posted By Veva at Sun 11 Oct 2009, 7:05 PM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 0 Replies the book from Lord Henry Does anyone know what the book is Lord Henry sends Dorian when he has decided to put the portrait upstairs in the schoolroom? It is about a youth in Paris and about the corruption of the youth. A kind of psychoanalytical thing. Dorian gets fascinated by it and has several copies made in several colours so that it will suit his changing moods and tastes. But does anyone know what book Wilde had in mind? It could be interesting to understand The Picture better... Thanks! k Posted By kiki1982 at Wed 6 May 2009, 12:51 PM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 6 Replies Dorian Grey&Why Devil didn't play his key role?

I just posted my first blog here.I can't say it is a Review of the book,i call it Abstract and i wrote a few already on my favorite masterpieces. My review is named *Dorian Grey&A Conversation with Oscar Wilde* I don't know if you asked yourself why Mr.Wilde didn't give the Devil an active role in his novele-i think Devil was not present as a character who take part in events. Goethe and Mikhail Bulgakov gave Devil a key role to act from the very beginning of their works. i would like to know your thinking on this theme. To read my abstract,please visit my blog here. If i posted this on wrong place,then a thread could be :What is your thinking about Abstracts? How do you like my writing and what do you think about such method of expression? Posted By rima at Wed 1 Oct 2008, 8:48 PM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 14 Replies Essay Help!! Hi, Im writing an essay for my english class and I was wondering if someone could help me out on the following topics... 1. Comment on Lord Henry and Dorian as "artists of their own lives." 2.

Discuss in depth the "terrible moral" in Dorian Gray. 3. Explain how and why Dorian has "sold his soul to the devil." If anyone can help and send me feedback on these topics it would be great and I would really appreciate it Posted By Dirtbikedude13 at Fri 14 Dec 2007, 6:42 AM in The Picture of Dorian Gray || 1 Reply The Picture of Dorian Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray or browse other Shmoopers' Questions In A Nutshell Eternal youth: it's the Holy Grail of anti-aging. Everyone wants it, but so far nobody can figure out how to get it. Sure, we've got plastic surgery to help with the wrinkles, but that can only do so much before you start looking like a wax figure on the verge of melting— or worse . But seriously, some people have gone to great lengths in search of never ending youth. Ponce de Leon even sailed all the way across the Atlantic after hearing a rumor the legendary Fountain of Youth might be hidden in Florida of all places. Have you ever been to Florida? There are more senior citizens there than at the World Series of Bingo , for crying out loud!

So we don't like the idea of getting old. Maybe we even think it'd be nice to just be immortal and never age. But if there's anything we can learn from literature, it's that we definitely don't want to live forever. Just look at Tuck Everlasting , or even Twilight . The immortal souls in these books tend to be more troubled and moody than wise and transcendent. What gives? The same can be said for Dorian Gray, the titular character from Oscar Wilde's one and only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the century or so since its initial publication in 1890, the fate of poor Dorian Gray has taken hold of the popular imagination. Dorian's story plays upon the timeless theme of selling one's soul in exchange for earthly pleasures (see other classics like Goethe's Faust or the musical Damn Yankees), and the inevitable disaster that results. Mix in a magical painting and a pinch of eternal youth and you've got the makings for this classic, fabulous story.

Wilde's version of this narrative is particularly notable for its embrace of the hedonistic lifestyle of the Decadents , a late nineteenth century artistic movement that prized beauty and aesthetic experience over pretty much everything else—even bacon. Dorian Gray and its protagonist have become synonymous with the pursuit of pleasure, regardless of its moral consequences. As with any good book, this novel raised quite a blizzard of scandal in its day, and had critics denouncing Wilde for what they perceived to be his own innate immorality—and as a result, he responded with the famous "Preface" to the novel (published in its second edition) that explained his artistic beliefs. (Check out more discussion of the Preface in " What's Up with the Epigraph? ") Altogether, The Picture of Dorian Gray reveals Wilde's philosophy more than any of his other works; reading it is an essential key to understanding his artistic mission as a whole. So lay off the Botox and inject yourself into this eloquent and poignant story—you just might appreciate a few wrinkles and gray hairs once all is said and done. Why Should I Care?

Botox, liposuction, lip plumping injections, silicone, hair plugs...we go to extraordinarily bizarre measures just to hang on to fading youth and beauty. Our society is so obsessed with youth that there's a multi-multi-million dollar industry simply devoted to making us look younger (or weirder, as the case may be). And why? Because we live in a culture where youth is idolized and age is the enemy of the people—the goal these days seems to be not just to stop aging, but to get younger. We're not the first culture to embrace this cult of youth, though. As we see in The Picture of Dorian Gray, our predecessors in the nineteenth century also longed for undying youth and beauty. In fact, the quest for the Fountain of Youth is one of the oldest stories there is; apparently, humanity in general has had a hard time getting over the fact that we all grow old and die. For this reason, Oscar Wilde 's 1890 novel never ceases to be relevant—until we finally discover the secret of real eternal youth, we'll always be interested in Dorian's quest for it.

SparkNotes: The Picture of Dorian Gray: Key Facts The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde full title · The Picture of Dorian Gray author · Oscar Wilde genre · Gothic; philosophical; comedy of manners language · English time and place written · 1890, London date of first publication · The first edition of the novel was published in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. A second edition, complete with six additional chapters, was published the following year. publisher · The 1891 edition was published by Ward, Lock & Company. narrator · The narrator is anonymous. point of view · The point of view is third person, omniscient. The narrator chronicles both the objective or external world and the subjective or internal thoughts and feelings of the characters. There is one short paragraph where a first-person point of view becomes apparent; in this section, Wilde becomes the narrator.

tone · Gothic (dark, supernatural); sardonic; comedic tense · Past setting (place) · London, England protagonist · Dorian Gray major conflict · Dorian Gray, having promised his soul in order to live a life of perpetual youth, must try to reconcile himself to the bodily decay and dissipation that are recorded in his portrait. rising action · Dorian notices the change in his portrait after ending his affair with Sibyl Vane; he commits himself wholly to the “yellow book” and indulges his fancy without regard for his reputation; the discrepancy between his outer purity and his inner depravity surges. climax · Dorian kills Basil Hallward. falling action · Dorian descends into London’s opium dens; he attempts to express remorse to Lord Henry; he stabs his portrait, thereby killing himself.

themes · The purpose of art; the supremacy of youth and beauty; the surface nature of society; the negative consequences of influence motifs · The color white; the picture of Dorian Gray; homoerotic male relationships symbols · The opium den; James Vane; the yellow book foreshadowing · The illegitimacy of Sibyl and James, as well as Sibyl’s portrayal of Juliet from Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet, foreshadow the doomed nature of Sibyl’s relationship with Dorian Gray. More Help Oscar Wilde's" Picture of Dorian Gray" [ Victorian Web Home —> Social History —> Oscar Wilde —> Next ] Credits Part of Chapter 6, "Monsters Of Self-Destruction," from the author's Victorian Suicide: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories, which Princeton University Press published in 1988. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright. This web version is a project supported by the University Scholars Programme of the National University of Singapore.

Scanning, basic HTML conversion, and proofreading were carried out by Adrian Kang, April Julia Ang, Alvin Wee, Derrick Wong and Sabrina Lim, undergraduates in the University Scholars Programme at the National University of Singapore, working under the direction of George P. Landow, who added links to materials in VW. Contents VIII. Century's End: "The Coming Universal Wish Not to Live" Directions 1. Numbers in brackets indicate page breaks in the print edition and thus allow users of VW to cite or locate the original page numbers. 2. Where possible, bibliographical information appears in the form of in-text citations, which refer to the bibliography at the end of each document. 3. Superscript numbers link only to documents containing substantial bibliographical information; the numbers do not form a complete sequence. 4. Non-bibliographic notes appears as text links. Bibliography Briggs, Julia. Night Visitors: The Rise and Fall of the English Ghost Story London: Faber, 1977. Brooks, Peter. Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative New York: Knopf, 1984. Kayser, Wolfgang.

The Grotesque in Art and Literature New York: McGraw Hill, 1966. Rogers, Robert. A Psychoanalytical Study of the Double in Literature Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, ed. James Rieger New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974. Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic, trans. Richard Howard Cleveland: Case Western Reserve, 1973. Rogers, Carl. A Psychoanalytic Study. Rank, Otto. Beyond Psychology New York: Dover, 1941. Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray, ed. Peter Ackroyd Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1982, p. 26. Periodicals Daily Chronicle, 30 June 1890 Punch, 19 July 1890 By 1891, when he published his Picture of Dorian Gray, >Oscar Wilde could project a world in which integration is impossible and where all of life's paths lead to self-destruction. As in Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde , hypocritical bourgeois culture is beastly dangerous, but so is every alternative to it. If Stevenson's society exhibits fragmented selves, Wilde's reveals a fractured place where everyone is doomed to untimely death. Appropriately, this world of Dorian Gray is described as monstrous throughout. Cynical and manipulative Lord Henry sees law and the temptations its repressiveness fosters as "monstrous," (Wilde, 26) while Dorian perceives his own delight in the altering portrait of him as "monstrous" (143) and later considers people smitten with "vice and blood and weariness" as "monstrous," too (161). And artist Basil Hallward, painter of the infamous picture of Dorian Gray, feels the secret of his soul lies in that beautiful portrait but sees in the end that it indeed "has the eyes of a devil" (174). Far from being a refuge from brutal reality, then, the sphere of an in this book is also deadly dangerous. Hallward is cruelly murdered by Dorian after he uncovers the secret of the portrait that Dorian has so carefully hidden away (as Jekyll does Hyde).

The living Dorian, still looking so like the beautiful, untainted picture that Hallward loves, [122/123] has gone rotten at the core. In worshipping and depicting Dorian's beauty, Hallward has helped create the monster of his own destruction. He is another suicide, killed by his own misjudgment. And so is actress Sibyl Vane. Living in a theatrical world of make-believe and melodrama, Sibyl cannot accept the reality of Dorian's rejection. When she decides to give up acting for his love, she is shocked at Dorian's callous, "without art you are nothing" (100), followed by his desertion. Steeped in theatrics, Sibyl commits suicide like Ophelia, not like the Juliet she so hoped she might play to Dorian's Romeo. Yet Sibyl is not a heroine of melodrama, for heroines of melodrama triumph in the end. Sibyl, a victim of art, dies from swallowing prussic acid, her only tribute being the brief record of her inquest and verdict of "death by misadventure" (139) which is recorded in St. James's.

Beautiful but deadly Dorian will drive many such admirers to suicide before he destroys his portrait and himself. A young boy of the guards; Adrian Singleton; Allen Campbell — Dorian's victims are many. To all of them Dorian must have seemed something other than what he was. Yet for a long time double life is a "pleasure" to Dorian, who asks, "is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities" (158). Only near his end does he desist from toying with others' lives and then prides himself when he leaves a village girl before destroying her too. Lord Henry teases him with the query, "how do you know that Herty isn't floating at the present moment in some star-lit mill-pond, with lovely waterlilies round her like Ophelia?" (233). Dorian, who at last discovers in himself the vestiges of a conscience, resents having any conscience at all, and so projects that conscience into the picture. When he tears at the painting with the very knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward, he is determined to "kill this monstrous soul-life" (247).

Instead he takes on the "withered, wrinkled, and loathsome" (240) visage of the portrait, emblem of his corrupted soul, and himself dies. Dorian is the now hideous portrait; it is his other self. The ending of this novel was problematical for late Victorian readers. Wilde's odd preface, which reads like an aesthetic's version of Blake's "Proverbs of Hell," warns that "there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book" (5) and that "those who read the symbol do so at their peril" (6). Nevertheless many did read the symbol and wondered whether the book were moral or immoral. Did it say that conscience cannot be denied and that all people who do deny it become self-destroying monsters? And if so, was suicide then justifiable as a kind of self-extermination of evil) Or did it say, as a reviewer for the Daily Chronicle surmised, that sensation is all? Mr.

Wilde says his book has a "moral." The "moral," so far as we can collect it, is that man's chief end is to develop his nature to the fullest by "always searching for new sensations," that when the soul gets sick the way to cure it is to deny the senses nothing, for "nothing," says one of Mr. Wilde's characters, Lord Henry Worron, "can cure the soul but the sense, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul." Man is half angel and half ape, and Mr. Wilde's book has no real use if it be not to inculcate the "moral" that when you feel yourself becoming too angelic you cannot do better than rush out and make a beast of yourself (DC, 7). A concerned Wilde reacted to this statement in a letter to the Chronicle, published on 2 July. "The real moral of the story," he states, "is that all excess, as well as renunciation, brings its punishment." One of Punch's reviewers, the Baron de Book-Worm, disagreed: If Oscar intended an allegory, the finish is dreadfully wrong.

Does he mean that, by sacrificing his earthly life, Dorian Gray atones for his infernal sins, and so purifies his soul by suicide? "Heavens! I am no preacher," says the Baron, "and perhaps Oscar didn't mean anything at all, except to give us a sensation, to show how like Bulwer Lytton's old-world style he could make his descriptions and his dialogue, and what an easy thing it is to frighten the respectable Mrs. Grundy with a Bogie." .Punch, 25] All the same, the bogey was there for the frightening. For Dorian was a monster quite opposite to the benign Elephant Man ; he was beautiful on the outside but ugly within. And "ugliness," Wilde's narrator tells us, "was the one reality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song" (2o6).

Like Tennyson's fictional Camelot, Wilde's portrait of fin de siècle England is of a land reeling back to the beasts, but with no hope for a second coming of a King Arthur to save it. The fantasy of Dorian Gray's portrait is not a Faustian story of a hero giving up life for knowledge, but a black fairy tale in which a spoiled boy gets his one wish — endless youthfulness and sensuality — and becomes a suicide because he cannot handle its implications. Wilde may have deserved the harsh criticism of his contemporaries, but like other Victorian creators of fictions and fantasies about monstrous selves who will to die, he discerned something deeply disturbing about his own culture. His Hallward, Dickens's Nell, Le Fanu's Jennings, Stevenson's Dr, Jekyll, and Tennyson's Balan all had "a little shadow that went along with them." That shadow was a dark, distorted other self, "a hideous hunchback," to use Matthew Arnold's paraphrase of Dr.

Posey, "seated on [their] shoulders and which was the main business of [their] lives to hate and oppose." (Arnold, 481) Often that subversive hunchback was beckoning them on toward death. “Dorian Gray” as Wilde actually wrote it - Salon.com Sunday, May 1, 2011 3:01 PM UTC “Dorian Gray” as Wilde actually wrote it A new edition finally brings us the original text of the novella along with a wealth of editorial insight Topics: Books , Fiction , Entertainment News More than a century after its publication, Oscar Wilde’s novella “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is recognized as one of the classics of English literature, a masterpiece of fin-de-siècle aestheticism and in many respects a harbinger of the modernist movement. Its current iconic status could not have been foreseen in 1890 when the story first appeared — simultaneously in Britain and the United States — in the pages of Lippincott’s Magazine.

This review from London’s Daily Chronicle voiced the outrage of many: Dulness and dirt are the chief features of Lippincott’s this month: The element that is unclean, though undeniably amusing, is furnished by Mr. Oscar Wilde’s story of “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” It is a tale spawned from the leprous literature of the French decadents — a poisonous book, the atmosphere of which is heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction — a gloating study of the mental and physical corruption of a fresh, fair and golden youth, which might be fascinating but for its effeminate frivolity, its studied insincerity, its theatrical cynicism, its tawdry mysticism, its flippant philosophizings…. Mr. Wilde says the book has “a moral.” The “moral,” so far as we can collect it, is that man’s chief end is to develop his nature to the fullest by “always searching for new sensations,” that when the soul gets sick the way to cure it is to deny the senses nothing.

“Unclean,” “corruption,” “leprous,” “putrefaction,” and “French decadents” were of course all coded terms for “homosexuality” — a word that would not enter the English language until two years later, and a concept that could not be openly discussed in a respectable newspaper of the time, nor mentioned in polite company; when “Dorian Gray” was revised for publication in book form a good portion of the material deemed unclean and leprous had to be removed. In fact, there had already been substantial cuts made in the Lippincott’s version by its editor, J.M. Stoddart, a process over which the author, in accordance with magazine protocol of the era, was given no control whatsoever. And Wilde and his subsequent editor would make further changes for the publication of “Dorian Gray” in book form a year later, in 1891. Strangely, considering the cult status that “The Picture of Dorian Gray” would eventually attain, Wilde’s original version has never been published until now, more than 120 years after the Lippincott edition.

It has been made available by Harvard’s Belknap Press in a richly annotated and illustrated volume edited by Nicholas Frankel. It is not often that a piece of serious scholarship is accorded such deluxe treatment, and in this case it is a cause for real celebration, for Frankel has provided a wealth of supplemental material and visual matter, as well as a “Textual Introduction” and a series of notes that explain references and cultural context, help the reader understand the editing processes, and point out the passages that were singled out for deletion, such as this speech that the portrait painter Basil Hallward addresses to Dorian: “It is quite true I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man should ever give to a friend. Somehow I have never loved a woman…. From the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me…. I adored you madly, extravagantly, absurdly. I was jealous of everyone to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself.

I was only happy when I was with you.” (This was a little strong even for an era when “romantic friendships” between men were acceptable, and in fact even the hero’s name, “Dorian” — “Greek” — was more than a bit suggestive.) Altogether, the revised 1891 manuscript that eventually appeared in book form encompassed a whole series of changes and omissions designed to alter and conventionalize the “moral,” such as it is, by heightening the beautiful Dorian’s monstrosity and thus rendering him a far less sympathetic character than he had appeared to be in the original typescript.

Looking at the typescript, then, we find more comprehensible Wilde’s oft-quoted statement on the book’s autobiographical elements: “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be — in other ages, perhaps.” Frankel has done much to place Wilde and his novel within the context of their time — “a heated atmosphere of hysteria and paranoia” about sexual “deviation.” The 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act was extended by Henry Labouchère, a radical member of Parliament, to include the criminalization of acts of “gross indecency” between men. (The Labouchère amendment was not repealed until 1956.) The vagueness of the amendment’s language — just what acts did “gross indecency” encompass, anyway?

— caused fear amounting to paranoia among the homosexual community; as Frankel writes, “The conditions had been created for a series of homosexual scandals that would rock London and increase the level of homophobia in British society.” The so-called Cleveland Street Affair, which broke only months before “Dorian Gray’s” first appearance, was the most spectacular of these, involving the infiltration and arrest of a ring of “rent boys” who worked by day as telegraph messengers and by night as prostitutes out of a brothel in Cleveland Street. A number of aristocrats and prominent military men were implicated; Lord Arthur Somerset, the Prince of Wales’ equerry, fled the country; a shadow was even cast on the name of the prince’s elder son, though that suspicion was subsequently proved groundless.

“In the wake of the Cleveland Street Scandal,” Frankel explains, “Wilde’s emphasis on Dorian Gray’s youthfulness, or susceptibility to the ‘corruption’ of an older aristocratic man (Lord Henry), is one of the features of the novel that most outraged reviewers.” Nowadays, the knowledge of Wilde’s poignant subsequent history casts a shadow over “Dorian Gray.” Married since 1884 to a beauty, Constance Lloyd, Wilde had been secretly leading a homosexual life at least since 1886 and probably much longer. (“The one charm of marriage,” Lord Henry quips in “Dorian Gray,” “is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties.”) In 1889 Wilde began courting a beautiful young poet named John Gray, the probable model for Dorian. (At least Gray himself believed this to be so, and the name would seem to be a clincher.) After the novel was published, Wilde began his disastrous affair with Lord Alfred Douglas.

His feud with his lover’s violent father, the marquess of Queensberry, resulted in one of the most famous lawsuits in history, Wilde’s eventual arrest on charges of sodomy, and his sentencing to two years’ hard labor. The most celebrated playwright and wit in England had become its most despised pariah. He never saw his two sons again; Constance changed their name, and hers, to “Holland,” and taught the boys “to forget that we had ever borne the name of Wilde and never to mention it to anyone.” After his release from prison, Wilde went into exile in France, where he assumed the name “Sebastian Melmoth” and died, in penury, in 1900. “I will never outlive the century,” he had predicted. “The English people would not stand for it.” Whether the original text is actually “better” than the book version published in 1891 is a moot point. Some of Wilde’s original material may have been lost in the latter (even the word “mistress” was deemed unsuitable for publication at that time, and the novel’s heterosexual material was censored as ruthlessly as its homosexual innuendos).

But much was gained, too, in the expanded version that Wilde prepared in 1891, with the brilliant Lord Henry being given some wonderful new material. This annotated version, though a treasure for scholars and for anyone with a serious interest in Wilde, the 1890s, and aestheticism, should serve as a supplement to the standard text rather than a replacement. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde | Feedbooks The Picture of Dorian Gray Download in EPUB format, also available for Kindle or in PDF Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works. Written in Wilde's characteristically dazzling manner, full of stinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of Dorian Gray's moral disintegration caused something of a scandal when it first appeared in 1890. Wilde was attacked for his decadence and corrupting influence, and a few years later the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma… (more) Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works.

Written in Wilde's characteristically dazzling manner, full of stinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of Dorian Gray's moral disintegration caused something of a scandal when it first appeared in 1890. Wilde was attacked for his decadence and corrupting influence, and a few years later the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde's homosexual liaisons, trials that resulted in his imprisonment. Of the book's value as autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps."

Question: Who wrote the novel  The Picture of Dorian Grey?
Answer: Oscar Wilde.