The Picture of Dorian Gray

In a London studio, the painter Basil Hallward completes a portrait of Dorian Gray, a young man of extraordinary beauty. Basil's witty friend Lord Henry Wotton fills Dorian's head with the idea that youth and pleasure are all that matter, and Dorian wishes aloud that the painting might grow old in his place. The wish seems to come true. As Dorian pursues a life of sensation and indulgence, his face stays fresh and innocent while the hidden canvas begins to record the marks of his actions.

Wilde's only novel is a gothic moral fable wrapped in the glittering talk of a drawing-room comedy. Lord Henry's epigrams sparkle on almost every page, yet the story asks serious questions about beauty, influence, conscience and the double lives people lead behind respectable surfaces. Its blend of wit, decadence and horror makes it a vivid introduction to the aesthetic movement and to late-Victorian anxieties about art and morality.

The story first appeared in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890, where many reviewers condemned it as immoral. Wilde revised and expanded it for publication as a book in 1891, adding a famous preface of aphorisms defending art for art's sake. Passages from the novel were later raised against him during his trials in 1895. It has since inspired numerous films, stage versions and television adaptations.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a classic by Oscar Wilde, first published in 1890. On BookClassics you can read it free online in German, English and French. A free audio excerpt is also available. You may also like An Ideal Husband, Lady Windermere's Fan and Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories.

Les destinations, le montant et le délai sont confirmés avec votre adresse avant paiement. Le suivi du transporteur devient disponible après expédition.

Le paiement à la livraison est en préparation.