The Picture of Dorian Gray - Literary Touchstone

ISBN: 1580493939

Author: Oscar Wilde

Condition: Used

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and readers notes to help the modern reader contend with Wildes many allusions and his complex approach to the human condition. Oscar Wildes only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, first appeared in 1891. Dorian Gray, a handsome young man, falls in with a group of friends, whose amoral philosophies he finds quite appealing. After he has his portrait painted, his frivolity and general demeanor degenerate into wickedness, but only the portrait bears the effects of his descent into decadence and serves as a powerful symbol of Grays internal ruin. Dorian himself, however, remains as young and unspoiled as the day he first sat for the painting. Wildes exploration of life without limits or consequences shocked its late-Victorian audience and remains highly un- settling to modern readers. We, like Dorian, are forced to reconsider whether total freedom and absolute knowledge are really worth their costs.