The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oxford World's Classics)

by OscarWilde (Author), JosephBristow (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $4.43

  'The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.' When Dorian Gray has his portrait painted, he is captivated by his own beauty. Tempted by his world-weary, decadent friend Lord Henry Wotton, he wishes to stay forever young, and pledges his very soul to keep his good looks. Set in fin-de-siecle London, the novel traces a path from the studio of painter Basil Hallward to the opium dens of the East End. As Dorian's slide into crime and cruelty progresses he stays magically youthful, while his beautiful portrait changes, revealing the hideous corruption of moral decay. Ever since its first publication in 1890 Wilde's only novel has remained the subject of critical controversy. Acclaimed by some as an instructive moral tale, it has been denounced by others for its implicit immorality. Combining elements of the supernatural, aestheticism, and the Gothic, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an unclassifiable and uniquely unsettling work of fiction.

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $3.34

• Used

  Hardcover
  1999

  $4.28

  The first World's Classics were introduced by some of the greatest writers of their day, including Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene and T.S. Eliot. In these hardback editions, contemporary novelists including A.S. Byatt and Joyce Carol Oates introduce their favourite classics in original pocketbook size. Echoing the original World's Classics series, the books are produced to gift-book standard with stitched binding, head and tail bands, printed on 60msg paper and featuring matt laminated jackets in a retro-look design. When Dorian Gray gazes upon his own portrait, he makes a wish that his youth and beauty will last forever. Good-natured and easily led, he falls into bad company and a life of debauchery, yet all the time retains his innocent good looks. Only his portrait reveals the true corruption of his soul.

• New

  Paperback
  1992

  $7.15

  With an Introduction and Notes by John M.L. Drew, University of Buckingham. Wilde's only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between art, life, and consequence. From its provocative Preface, challenging the reader to believe in 'art for art's sake', to its sensational conclusion, the story self-consciously experiments with the notion of sin as an element of design. Yet Wilde himself underestimated the consequences of his experiment, and its capacity to outrage the Victorian establishment. Its words returned to haunt him in his court appearances in 1895, and he later recalled the 'note of doom' which runs like 'a purple thread' through its carefully crafted prose.

• New

  hardcover
  

  $17.50

  Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The novel was a succes de scandale and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895. It has lost none of its power to fascinate and disturb.