Would you trade your soul for eternal youth? Oscar Wilde’s provocative novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, tells the story of a beautiful young man who strikes this Faustian bargain by which a painted portrait fades and ages while he remains untouched by time. His stunning beauty protects him from suspicion in a society that judges by appearances while he spirals into ever more scandalous hedonism and wrongdoing. Wilde defended his sensational tale, which outraged Victorian critics, arguing that art should not be judged by moral standards. The book eventually became evidence in a criminal case that sent Wilde to prison for two years for “gross indecency” with men, and ever since the gripping tale retains its power as a key text for anyone skeptical of the stifling constraints of dominant culture or the obsession with superficial beauty that defines our age.
Table of Content
Contents
The Preface
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Note on the Text
Afterword by Ulrich Baer
Biographical Timeline
About the author
Ulrich Baer holds a BA from Harvard and a Ph D from Yale. He is University Professor at New York University, where he teaches literature and photography. He has been awarded Guggenheim, Getty, and Alexander von Humboldt fellowships. He is the author of Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Dark Interval, Letters on Life, and Letters to a Young Poet. Other books include Spectral Evidence, What Snowflakes Get Right, and in the Warbler Press Contemplations series: Shakespeare, Dickinson, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Wilde on Love.
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