Biographie d'Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on 16 October 1854. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford. He later lived in London and married Constance Lloyd there in 1884. Wilde was a leader of the Aesthetic Movement. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was first published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. He published a revised and expanded edition in 1891 in response to negative reviews which criticised the book's immorality.
Wilde became famous through of the immense success of his plays such as Lady Windemere's Fan (1892), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). In 1985, after a public scandal involving Wilde's relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, he was sentenced to two years' hard labour in Reading Gaol for 'gross indecency'. His poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol was based on his experiences in prison and was published in 1898.
After his release, Wilde never lived in England again and died in Paris on 30 November 1900. He is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery.
Irvine Welsh was born and raised in Edinburgh. His first novel, Trainspotting, has sold over one million copies in the UK and was adapted into an era-defining film. He has written thirteen further novels, including Crime and the number one bestseller Dead Men's Trousers, four books of shorter fiction and numerous plays and screenplays.
Irvine Welsh currently lives between London, Edinburgh and Miami.
Everlasting beauty has its price...
The story happens during the Victorian era, around the figure of the young and very handsome lad Dorian Gray. After becoming the model and muse of Basil Hallward, a sensitive painter, Gray is so enthralled by his portrait that he implicitly makes a deal with the devil ; he wished for the picture to grow old in his place so he can remain untouched by the marks of time. But every pact has a catch... Influenced by his mentor Lord Henry and his hedonistic world view, Dorian basks in a decadent lifestyle for years while his picture takes all the blames and gets uglier... to a point of no-return.
By portraying a cruel, narcissistic and amoral character, Wilde offers his readers a still contemporary critique of hedonistic behaviors and the superficiality and blindness of those who adopt this way of living.