The Picture of Dorian Gray – Introduction and Table of Contents
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic horror novel by Oscar Wilde. Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. The Picture of Dorian Gray is his only novel. The original, novella-length, story was published In the July 1890 issue of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine (an American periodical). After its publication, Wilde extended the text to novel-length and the first The Picture of Dorian Gray book was published in April 1891.
A very clever story, The Picture of Dorian Gray revolves around a portrait of the central character. Gray is an extremely good-looking man, and his friend, Basil Hallward, decides to try and capture his beauty on canvas. He is successful in this.
Gray is an innocent young man who is unaware of his exceptional good looks. However, this changes when he meets Lord Henry Wotton, whose hedonistic life view proves to be a bad influence. Then, when Hallward reveals the finished portrait, Gray sees himself for the first time as others see him and remarks how sad it is that he will eventually grow old while his picture will remain the same. He wishes it could be the other way around an murmurs he would give his soul for that.
Gray gets his wish and, although he embarks on a very immoral lifestyle, none of his sins show on his face, which remains angelic. The picture, which Gray keeps locked in his attic, changes instead.
The Picture of Dorian Gray proved to be a very controversial story that was subject to much criticism. After reading the critical comments that followed the release of the original novella, Wilde wrote a preface for the book that followed. His preface, which makes interesting reading, points out the way some critics find ugliness in beautiful things, while others appreciate them for what they are.
Wilde’s preface could be seen as suggesting books can work in a similar way to a Rorschach Inkblot Test, where the interpretation reveals more about the viewer than what’s present on the paper. Sadly, this type of misinterpretation of the written word continues to this day, with many books being banned or having their text altered to make them more “politically correct”. Examples include books by Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, and Agatha Christie.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is split into 13 chapters. This site presents one chapter per page. Each page has a link to the following chapter. I have also included a table of contents, below, for the convenience of visitors who wish to navigate straight to specific chapters. For further information, please read my review of the book.