Novel
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde · 1890
Opening lines
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.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
London. The painter Basil Hallward finishes the portrait of a young man of perfect beauty and introduces him to a friend, Lord Henry, who talks to him for a whole afternoon about youth, pleasure and the little time one has to enjoy them. Dorian, looking at the canvas, wishes aloud that it were the painting that would age in his place. Soon afterwards he begins to follow the advice he has been given, falls in love with a young actress, and one day notices that the mouth in the portrait has taken on a cruel twist.
Context
The text first appeared in thirteen chapters in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, whose editor, judging it immoral, had removed some five hundred words without informing the author. The British press was indignant, and one daily went so far as to mention prosecution. The author defended the book in the press, then revised it for the 1891 volume, extended to twenty chapters and preceded by a preface of aphorisms that answered his critics. The manuscript restored without the cuts was not published until 2011. Passages from the magazine version were read out against him at the libel trial he brought in 1895.
Who it is for
A short novel; the uncensored 1890 version has existed in French since 2013. The preface of aphorisms can be read independently.
Prizes and reception
The only novel by its author, the only one of his books turned against him in court, and a book that marked homosexual literature of the following century.
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