The Portrait of Dorian Gray (1890)
| Author | Oscar Wilde |
|---|---|
| Year | 1890 |
| Genre | Classics |
Wilde's only novel is, in essence, a terrifying tale about a contract that no one signed. A youth of rare beauty poses for an artist, jokingly wishing that the portrait would age instead of himself — and the wish comes true. Then begins a slow experiment: if the consequences are not reflected on the face, does anything stop a person? Wilde writes about this not as a moralist, but as a dandy: half of the book is the brilliant chatter of Lord Henry, who is pleasant to quote and dangerous to listen to, because his aphorisms work like slow-acting poison. The 1890 novel caused a scandal, and the author was later reminded of it in court — a rare case where a book was used as evidence against its writer. It is read today both as a gothic story and as the most elegant text on the price of aestheticism: art here is indeed immortal, but the person who decided to live as art is not.
The book card in the MegaInet.art catalog — reference information. Files are not distributed. Actual data: Wikidata (CC0).
