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The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

In a painter’s studio, two men talk about the beautiful Dorian Gray.

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Original language: EnglishLevel: Advanced3,519 characters · ≈ 5 minSource: Project Gutenberg

Opening lines

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 saddle-bags 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…

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About the book

This is Oscar Wilde's only novel, a work of philosophical fiction and Gothic horror. It centers on a portrait of Dorian Gray painted by his friend Basil Hallward: influenced by Lord Henry's hedonism, Dorian wishes that the portrait age instead of him, then lives a life of libertine excess while staying young, as the picture records each of his sins. Initially controversial on publication, it is now regarded as a classic of Gothic and English literature.

About the author

Oscar Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet and playwright, and a key figure in the late 19th-century Aestheticism movement. He is best known for his Gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), his epigrams, plays and bedtime stories for children.

Summary prepared with AI from Wikipedia: The Picture of Dorian Gray (CC BY-SA)

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