Discover the story of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray with this exquisite edition from Union Square & Co.'s Signature Gilded Editions series! The stunning Picture of Dorian Grayspecial edition features sprayed edges, color end pages, a built-in ribbon bookmark, and embossed foil cover. The beautiful design and attention to detail set this special edition book apart, whether you're reading for the first time or building a library of your favorite classic literature books.
When handsome young Dorian Gray sees a painter's stunning portrait of him, he is transfixed by its reflection of his own beauty. He is also troubled by the knowledge that the image in the painting will remain forever youthful and handsome while he himself will grow older and less desirable. He wishes aloud that the roles were reversed, saying that he would give his soul if only the painting would suffer the ravages of time and he were to remain forever young. From that point on, Dorian lives a life of hedonistic indulgence, knowing that only the painting will show his moral corruption.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde was first published in 1890. The story is set in late nineteenth-century London and follows the life of Dorian Gray, a young man enthralled with himself. Wilde's first and only novel delivers a scathing critique of Victorian society's superficial judgments and hypocrisy. The novel provokes philosophical thought on the duality of human nature and the ethical consequences of surrendering to one's baser instincts. Though controversial in its time, The Picture of Dorian Gray has become a celebrated literary work still adapted today for its wit, social commentary, and timeless investigation of morality.
Oscar Wilde was an 19th century Irish writer whose works include the play The Importance of Being Earnest and the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. He is also one of the Victorian era's most famous dandies, a wit whose good-humored disdain for convention became less favored after he was jailed for homosexuality. Wilde grew up in a prosperous family and distinguished himself at Dublin's Trinity College and London's Oxford. He published his first volume of poems in 1881 and found work in England as a critic and lecturer, but it was his socializing (and self-promotion) that made him famous, even before the 1890 publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray. In 1895, at the height of his popularity, his relationship with the young poet Lord Alfred Douglas was declared inappropriately intimate by Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde sued for libel, but the tables were turned when it became clear there was enough evidence to charge Wilde with "gross indecency" for his homosexual relationships. He was convicted and spent two years in jail, after which he went into self-imposed exile in France, bankrupt and in ill health.
.jpg)
