En cours de chargement...
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.
Fearing the story was indecent, the magazine's editor deleted roughly five hundred words before publication without Wilde's knowledge. Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding public morality.
In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press, although he personally made excisions of some of the most controversial material when revising and lengthening the story for book publication the following year.
(from wikipedia.org)
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.