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PLEASE NOTE. As of June 2004 these pages and the links herein are no longer being updated or maintained. Disclaimer : Oakland Unified School District is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. Description: The novel is a brilliant portrait of vanity
and depravity tinged with sadness. The picture of the title is a
splendid work painted by Basil Hallward of the orphaned boy Dorian
Gray who is the heir to a great fortune. Lord Henry and Hallward
discuss the boy and the remarkable painting. Dorian enters and declares
that he would give his soul if he were always to be young and the
painting instead would grow old. As the story pans out, Dorian leaves
his fiancée - the actress Sibyl Vane - because through a
single bad performance he claims that she has ‘killed’
his love. She kills herself with poison and Dorian is unaffected.
So begins the tale of the boy’s descent into low society in
London while still giving dinners and musicals for high society.
more
Booknotes:
Other websites about The Picture of Dorian Gray
Author Biography: Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin to unconventional parents - his mother Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (1820-96), was an poet and journalist. Her pen name was Sperenza and she warded off creditors by reciting Aeschylus. His father was Sir William Wilde, an Irish antiquarian, gifted writer, and specialist in diseases of the eye and ear. Wilde studied at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (1864-71), Trinity College, Dublin (1871-74) and Magdalen College, Oxford (1874-78), where he was taught by Walter Patewr and John Ruskin. In Oxford Wilde shocked the pious dons with his irreverent attitude towards religion and was jeered at his eccentric clothes. He collected blue china and peacock's feathers, and later his velvet knee-breeches drew much attention. More... (© Books and Writers) Websites about Oscar Wilde
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