The Picture Of Dorian Gray (Hardcover-2023)

About the Book

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a gothic and moral fantasy novel by Oscar Wilde. This is the only novel he wrote and published in 1891 after heavy editing because critics and editors deemed it immoral and indecent. However, it flourished to be a masterpiece despite the controversies. The work is an archetypal tale of a young man, Dorian Gray, who barters his soul to buy eternal youth. Dorian is a subject of a portrait by Basil, an artist impressed by Dorian's flamboyance. Dorian acknowledges that his beauty will fade, but he yearns for his youth to last and his portrait to age instead while it records every sin. The work comes with subthemes of romantic aestheticism, hedonism, and sexuality. The major three characters of the novel are a reflection of Wilde's alter egos: who he is, who he yearns to be, and who he is perceived as. The book has been translated into many languages, including Persian and Spanish. The Guardian listed it among the 100 best novels ever written in English, calling it "an arresting, and slightly camp, exercise in late-Victorian gothic".

About the Author

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish poet and play wright born in Dublin, Ireland. He received scholarships in Trinity College, Dublin where he received his education, and was awarded with honours degree from Oxford. His mother was a prolific poet, who published nationalist poems in Irish newspapers, and his father, a physician, wrote many successful medical books. His prodigious literary talent was recognised when he received the Newdegate Prize for his excellent poem Ravenna. His oeuvre encouraged the Aesthetic Movement and avidly supported the Art for Art’s Sake movement. In the early 1880s, when aestheticism was the rage and despair of literary London, Wilde established himself in social and artistic circles using his wit and flamboyance. Instances of dandyism were also asserted in his works as well as his temperament as he wore silk stockings, long coats, and flowy hair, exuding an eccentric and sophisticated aura.  He was married with children, but there are shadows of homosexuality in his readings. His urge to revolt against narrow-mindset ushered his wit into nineteenth-century literature. His most famous works are The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.

He died by acute meningitis in Paris, France, in 1900, aged 46.