The Picture of Dorian Gray - Softcover

Wilde, Oscar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451519671 ISBN 13: 9780451519672

Publisher: Signet Classics, 1962

Synopsis

Webster's paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently assigned readings in English courses. By using a running English-to-Thai thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde was edited for three audiences. The first includes Thai-speaking students enrolled in an English Language Program (ELP), an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) program, an English as a Second Language Program (ESL), or in a TOEFL or TOEIC preparation program. The second audience includes English-speaking students enrolled in bilingual education programs or Thai speakers enrolled in English-speaking schools. The third audience consists of students who are actively building their vocabularies in Thai in order to take foreign service, translation certification, Advanced Placement (AP) or similar examinations. By using the Webster's Thai Thesaurus Edition when assigned for an English course, the reader can enrich their vocabulary in anticipation of an examination in Thai or English.
TOEFL, TOEIC, AP and Advanced Placement are trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which has neither reviewed nor endorsed this book. All rights reserved.

About this title

Review

A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."

As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."

From the Publisher

Oscar Wilde's only published full length novel, is the story of a man who sells his soul for eternal youth. In exchange, what does he give up and what does he gain? This novel, by Wilde is a wonderful soul-searching example of the cost of paradise, and the price of a wish.

Read by actor, comedian, novelist, journalist, screenwriter Stephen Fry, Dorian Gray's dilemma comes alive. He has also acted in a variety of films including A Fish Called Wanda, Peter's Friends, and The Wind in the Willows.

Edition details

• Publisher: Signet Classics
• Publication date: 1962
• ISBN 10: 0451519671
• ISBN 13: 9780451519672
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 234