Wilde, Oscar "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Wilde, Oscar "The Picture of Dorian Gray" - 1890

I read this book many many years ago in German and always wanted to re-read it in the original. Now, I finally did it.

I love Oscar Wilde's plays, I read quite a few of them, even though I prefer watching plays. My favourite is probably "The Importance of Being Earnest" closely followed by "A Woman of No Importance".

Having also read quite a bit about his life, especially his biography "Constance" by Franny Moyle, I cannot help but think that there is a lot about Oscar Wilde in Dorian Gray.

The novel certainly raises a lot of questions and gives everyone a lot to think about. How shallow are we really? How vain? And what would we swap for eternal beauty?

The book is full of quotes that can be thrown into any conversation and whole discussions can start around them. One of my favourites:
"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."

I would certainly put this on a list of books everyone should read, a list of books I would take to a desert island, a list of books that will stay with me forever. If you haven't read it, you definitely should.

We talked about this in our international online book club in December 2025.

"Our discussion of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was wide-ranging, and everyone agreed that the book is still very compelling.

We talked a lot about the characters, especially Dorian and whether he ever really had a chance to turn away from his moral decline. His relationship with Lord Henry and Basil sparked discussion about influence: Henry’s ideas are charming but dangerous, while Basil represents a more moral voice that ultimately fails to stop Dorian.

We also discussed the role of art, focusing on the portrait as more than just a supernatural element. It felt like a way for Wilde to show how inner life and outward appearance can split apart, and how hard it is to escape the truth about oneself. This led naturally into talking about how well the novel has aged. Many of us saw clear parallels to modern social media, influencer culture, and marketing, where beauty and image are often treated as proof of goodness or value.

The group also placed the novel alongside other 19th-century Gothic and horror stories like Dracula and Frankenstein, noting that these books use horror to explore moral questions rather than just fear. We appreciated that Dorian Gray is Wilde’s only full-length novel and admired the beauty and wit of his English prose. We briefly touched on film adaptations as well, agreeing that while some capture the look and mood of the story, the novel itself remains the strongest version.

Overall, we all genuinely enjoyed the book and felt it was a rewarding read that offered plenty to think and talk about, even long after the discussion ended."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"When the exquisitely handsome Dorian Gray sees his portrait he dreams of remaining young forever while his painted image grows old and, in a sudden moment, he offers his soul in return for perpetual youth. While his beauty remains unblemished, the potrait begins to reflect the wildness and degredation of his soul as he surrenders to a worship of pleasure and infinite passion.

The Picture of Dorian Gray caused outrage when it was first published in 1890 and marked the onset of Oscar Wilde's own fatal reputation and eventual downfall. An evocative potrayal of London life and a powerful blast against the hypocrisies of Victorian polite society it has beconme one of Oscar Wilde's most celebrated works, full of the flamboyant wit for which he is justly renowned."