Wilde : Picture Of Dorian Gray

by OscarWilde (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1990

  $3.35

• Used

  Paperback
  1998

  $13.52

  In Oscar Wilde's famous novel, Dorian Gray is tempted by Henry Wotton to sell his soul in order to hold on to beauty and youth. Dorian succumbs and murders the portrait painter Basil Haliward, who stands between him and his goal. Though in the end vice is punished and virtue rewarded, the novel remains one of the most important expressions of fin de siecle decadence. It is in the preface to the expanded edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray that Wilde coined the most famous expression of his aesthetic: There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written or badly-written. That is all.
  
  Like other Broadview Editions, this edition includes a wide range of materials from the period that help to set the text in context. In particular, the editor locates the text both in relation to elements in the mainstream culture of the day (such as the aesthetes); and in relation to the gay subculture.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1995

  $3.35

• New

  Paperback
  1999

  $19.45

  The story of a man who preserves his youth while his portrait visibly deteriorates with time.

• New

  hardcover
  

  $17.56

  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.