The Picture Of Dorian Gray(Illustrated) E-Book

Oscar Wilde

• Herausgeber: Jillian Wayne
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

• Illustrated Edition: 20 evocative, high-quality illustrations curated to match key scenes
• Bonus Material: Concise summary to orient new readers and refresh returning ones
• Character Guide: Clear list of major and minor characters for quick reference
• Author Spotlight: Brief, engaging biography of Oscar Wilde

Step into the gilded salons and shadowed attics of Victorian London, where beauty glitters—and conscience withers. Oscar Wilde’s only novel follows Dorian Gray, a dazzling young man who makes a perilous wish: that his portrait should bear the marks of age and sin while he remains forever young. Guided by the seductive wit of Lord Henry and adored by the earnest artist Basil Hallward, Dorian begins a thrilling descent into pleasure, secrecy, and ruin—his flawless face unchanging while the hidden canvas grows monstrous.
This illustrated edition heightens the novel’s gothic allure with 20 atmospheric images that spotlight iconic moments: the unveiling of the portrait, the theatre’s velvet glow, the opium-fogged streets, and the final, chilling reckoning. Whether you’re discovering Wilde for the first time or returning for the aphorisms and moral sting, this volume brings fresh clarity and visual drama to a timeless classic.
Why you’ll love this edition
A captivating reading experience that blends Wilde’s glittering prose with immersive artwork
Thoughtful reader’s aids: a crisp summary, a handy character list, and a brief author biography for context
Ideal for book clubs, students, and collectors who want a beautiful, easy-to-navigate copy
Seductive, witty, and unnervingly modern, The Picture of Dorian Gray remains the ultimate fable of beauty unmoored from responsibility—and the steep price of a pleasure-only life.

 

Leseprobe

The Picture Of Dorian Gray                                                                        

By                                                                                                                             Oscar Wilde

ABOUT WILDE

Oscar Wilde: The Dandy of Daring Genius

Early Life and Education

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854, in Dublin, Ireland, into a household of intellect and social grace. His father, Sir William Wilde, was a respected eye and ear surgeon as well as an amateur archaeologist, while his mother, Jane Francesca Elgee (Lady Wilde), was a poet and early advocate for Irish nationalism who wrote under the name Speranza.

Growing up in such a vibrant environment, young Oscar absorbed languages, myths, and wit as naturally as breath itself. His schooling at Trinity College, Dublin, revealed his prodigious intelligence—he won the prestigious Berkeley Gold Medal in classics. Later, at Magdalen College, Oxford, he distinguished himself both for his academic brilliance and flamboyant persona. It was here that he began to craft his philosophy of “art for art’s sake,” aligning with the Aesthetic Movement.

The Rise of a Cultural Icon

After graduating in 1878, Wilde made London his stage—both literally and socially. Dressed impeccably and speaking in epigrams, he became the living symbol of aestheticism. His early works included poetry, such as Poems (1881), and his acclaimed lecture tour across America in 1882, where he famously declared, “I have nothing to declare except my genius.”

By the late 1880s, Wilde was writing some of his finest prose. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), scandalized Victorian sensibilities with its moral ambiguity and exploration of vanity, beauty, and corruption. Yet it was his later plays—sparkling with irony and social critique—that secured his immortality. Works like Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) remain theatrical masterpieces of wit and satire.

Love, Scandal, and Downfall

In 1884, Wilde married Constance Lloyd, with whom he had two sons. Despite his family life, Wilde’s passionate relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas (“Bosie”) would change his fate. Their liaison, intoxicating and reckless, drew the wrath of Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry.

When Wilde sued the Marquess for libel in 1895, the trial backfired. The evidence of Wilde’s relationships with men led to his own prosecution for “gross indecency.” Convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor, Wilde’s brilliance met brutal repression. He emerged from prison in 1897 a changed man—frail, introspective, and impoverished.

Exile and Final Years

After his release, Wilde adopted the name Sebastian Melmoth and lived mainly in France. There, he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a haunting poem reflecting on his prison experience and the cruelty of the justice system.

His final years were marked by illness, debt, and lingering fame. He spent his days in modest Parisian hotels, still charming those around him with flashes of wit. On November 30, 1900, Wilde died of meningitis at the age of 46, uttering one last quip about his shabby surroundings:

“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go.”

Legacy

Oscar Wilde remains one of literature’s most paradoxical figures—at once dazzling and tragic, rebellious and refined. His words, sharp as crystal and tender as confession, continue to resonate across generations. Through his plays, essays, and aphorisms, Wilde redefined not only literature but also the freedom of self-expression.

His life stands as a bold declaration that beauty, truth, and individuality—no matter the cost—are worth the pursuit.

SUMMARY

The Picture of Dorian Gray — Captivating Summary

A charming young aristocrat, Dorian Gray, falls under the spell of two forces: Basil Hallward, the painter who adores his beauty, and Lord Henry Wotton, the cynic who preaches pleasure above all. When Basil unveils Dorian’s portrait—an image of youth perfected—Dorian makes a reckless wish: that he might stay forever young while the painting bears the marks of age and sin.

The wish comes true. As Dorian chases sensation—love turned cruel, friendships discarded, secrets multiplying—his face remains angelic. Only the hidden canvas changes, growing hideous with every betrayal and indulgence. Fascinated and trapped by his own experiment in consequence-free living, Dorian tries to outpace guilt, even to destroy its proof. But the portrait is more than paint; it is conscience made visible. In the final reckoning, beauty without morality becomes its own punishment.

Why it grips readers

Faustian bargain, modern setting: Eternal youth traded for a corroded soul.

Wit with bite: Lord Henry’s glittering epigrams tempt both Dorian and us.

Art vs. ethics: Can beauty be good if it blinds us to harm?

Public mask, private rot: The portrait as a mirror for hypocrisy.

Gothic shimmer: Lush salons, shadowy attics, and a steady slide into horror.

Perfect for: Fans of elegant prose, moral thrillers, and stories where a single, uncanny idea exposes the whole of human desire.

CHARACTERS LIST

Main Characters

Dorian Gray

The novel’s handsome and impressionable protagonist. Dorian begins as an innocent young man fascinated by beauty and pleasure. After wishing that his portrait would age instead of him, he falls into a life of moral corruption, crime, and self-indulgence—while his youthful face remains untouched. His character embodies the conflict between outward perfection and inner decay.

Lord Henry Wotton (Harry)

A witty, cynical aristocrat whose philosophy of hedonism and self-gratification greatly influences Dorian. Lord Henry delights in shocking others with paradoxical sayings and treats life as an aesthetic experiment. He serves as both Dorian’s mentor and his moral downfall.

Basil Hallward

A sincere and sensitive artist who paints Dorian’s portrait. Basil represents the moral conscience of the novel. He sees Dorian as the living embodiment of beauty and goodness—but his admiration becomes destructive. His love for art and purity contrasts with Lord Henry’s amorality.

Supporting Characters

Sibyl Vane

A beautiful and talented young actress whom Dorian briefly falls in love with. Her passion for acting mirrors her romantic idealism, but when Dorian cruelly rejects her, tragedy follows. Sibyl represents innocence and the destructive impact of Dorian’s vanity.

James Vane

Sibyl’s protective brother, a sailor who vows revenge on Dorian for his sister’s death. He becomes a symbol of retribution and the return of conscience to Dorian’s life.

Alan Campbell

A scientist and former friend of Dorian who is blackmailed into helping him dispose of a body. His involvement reveals the depth of Dorian’s moral corruption.

Lady Agatha

Lord Henry’s well-meaning aunt who represents the social respectability of upper-class society. She hosts gatherings that introduce Dorian to London’s fashionable elite.

Lord Fermor

Lord Henry’s uncle—a minor but humorous character who provides insight into Henry’s background and the gossip-driven world of the aristocracy.

Adrian Singleton

One of Dorian’s many ruined acquaintances, a man whose life has been destroyed by association with him. He reflects the consequences of Dorian’s moral decay on others.

Symbolic Characters and Figures

The Portrait

Not a person, but the most important “character” of all. The painting reflects Dorian’s true self—his sins, guilt, and moral corruption—while his physical body remains flawless. It serves as the haunting mirror of his soul.

Table of Contents

Titlepage

Imprint

Preface

The Picture of Dorian Gray

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

Colophon

Uncopyright

Preface

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

Oscar Wilde.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

I

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.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddlebags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.

As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

“It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,” said Lord Henry languidly. “You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor is really the only place.”

“I don’t think I shall send it anywhere,” he answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. “No, I won’t send it anywhere.”

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. “Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.”

“I know you will laugh at me,” he replied, “but I really can’t exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it.”

Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.

“Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same.”

“Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn’t know you were so vain; and I really can’t see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you—well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don’t think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don’t flatter yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him.”

“You don’t understand me, Harry,” answered the artist. “Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.”

“Dorian Gray? Is that his name?” asked Lord Henry, walking across the studio towards Basil Hallward.

“Yes, that is his name. I didn’t intend to tell it to you.”

“But why not?”

“Oh, I can’t explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one’s life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?”

“Not at all,” answered Lord Henry, “not at all, my dear Basil. You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meet—we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke’s—we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it—much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would; but she merely laughs at me.”

“I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry,” said Basil Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. “I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose.”

“Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,” cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.

After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. “I am afraid I must be going, Basil,” he murmured, “and before I go, I insist on your answering a question I put to you some time ago.”

“What is that?” said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

“You know quite well.”

“I do not, Harry.”

“Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you won’t exhibit Dorian Gray’s picture. I want the real reason.”

“I told you the real reason.”

“No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of yourself in it. Now, that is childish.”

“Harry,” said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, “every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.”

Lord Henry laughed. “And what is that?” he asked.

“I will tell you,” said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came over his face.

“I am all expectation, Basil,” continued his companion, glancing at him.

“Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry,” answered the painter; “and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly believe it.”

Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from the grass and examined it. “I am quite sure I shall understand it,” he replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk, “and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.”

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long thin dragonfly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward’s heart beating, and wondered what was coming.

“The story is simply this,” said the painter after some time. “Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon’s. You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly became conscious that someone was looking at me. I turned halfway round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then—but I don’t know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape.”

“Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.”

“I don’t believe that, Harry, and I don’t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive—and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud—I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon. ‘You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward?’ she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?”

“Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty,” said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.

“I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were destined to know each other.”

“And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?” asked his companion. “I know she goes in for giving a rapid précis of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to everybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants to know.”

“Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!” said Hallward listlessly.

“My dear fellow, she tried to found a salon, and only succeeded in opening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?”

“Oh, something like, ‘Charming boy—poor dear mother and I absolutely inseparable. Quite forget what he does—afraid he—doesn’t do anything—oh, yes, plays the piano—or is it the violin, dear Mr. Gray?’ Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at once.”

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one,” said the young lord, plucking another daisy.

Hallward shook his head. “You don’t understand what friendship is, Harry,” he murmured—“or what enmity is, for that matter. You like everyone; that is to say, you are indifferent to everyone.”