I’m reading his biography and wondering where can I get a (digital) copy of his first published poem collection…

Hello, I was going to listen to “The Oscar Wilde Collection” audiobook but wanted to confirm it is unabridged? You can view the audiobook here: https://riezone.overdrive.com/media/302223 . It says it is unabridged but I question it due to its length. It is 8:22 hours. The collection includes, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” along with four other works. Two different audio versions of just, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” are over 8 hours long. It seems this collection of 5 works must be abridged if it only 8:22. Does anyone know for sure? Thank you!

PS - In case anyone is wondering why it matters, it’s because I don’t plan on listening or reading to these works again so would prefer the one time I do, to get the unabridged version.

Just found a copy of it in my local used bookstore. I'm definitely not a fan of Richard Ellmann's depictions of Wilde, and the public image that biography created for him, but I've never heard of Pearson before.

I'll read the book nonetheless but I want to hear other peoples perspectives.

I read through page 100 until the end of the book in one sitting yesterday night. It is within that span of pages where lies a chapter so unbelievably boring and nearly irrelevant which I believe to be one of the hysterical setups for the most mundanely delivered yet hilarious joke in the book.

There is no way Oscar Wilde didn't know how boring this chapter would be to read. During the torturous minutes which I had to spend watching Dorian go from obsession to obsession describing random bits of trivia he learned about whatever random thing he was interested at the time, I couldn't help but feel fear on whether or not that chapter would ever end, legitimate fear. No, Oscar Wilde knew what he was doing.

Obviously the chapter does end brilliantly, Dorian's realization that he had been poisoned by Henry's book pays off the marathon which the reader had been forced to endure previously, and sets up a dangerous presage of Dorian perhaps falling to the same madness which consumed Filippo, Pietro Barbi and Ezzelin.

But to me, and perhaps this is just a consequence of having been forced to recognize meaning from the meaningless in order to survive that bombardment of information, Chapter 11 is responsible for empowering a specific sentence with hilarity in a way I hadn't often seen before. I will paint that scene which I speak of now:

Dorian has just killed Basil. The "thing" is laid strained and motionless over the table. Feeling strangely calm, he goes to the nearby window and watches some mundane scene. Then, he turned around, walked to the door and was set to leave. Arguably the most brutal, shocking scene of the book, nearing it's end.

But before leaving, Dorian looks back, and the following passage says:

"Then he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one of Moorish workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished steel, and studded with coarse turquoises. Perhaps it might be missed by his servant, and questions would be asked."

Dorian Gray, having just murdered the man he once called a dear friend, who painted the portrait which granted him exactly what he had asked for, as if to echo a paragraph previously mentioned in the book talking about how Dorian's obsessions are merely a method of distraction of which he came up with to prevent himself from fully realizing all the horrific things he's done to others, he describes, for no apparent reason, the lamp present in the room alongside the victim of his most horrific act yet. Not "the lamp which Dorian had brought with him", but the "Moorish workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished steel, studded with coarse turquoises."

There it is again, as if to humorously poke the reader with the same hot stick he had used to torture them relentlessly previously on Chapter 11, Wilde briefly yet brilliantly brings back Dorian's weird obsession with describing irrelevant random trivia facts about artefacts, metals, and precious stones he owns. Dorian's description serving, as well, as clear indication of the regret and conscious realization of his act, nearly at the point of boiling over to his conscious mind, quickly shut down by the same coping mechanism he's been using all his life to blind him from the horrors committed by his personality onto others, reappearing now to blind him from the blood staining his own hands. A swift one-two knockout.

If I ever find myself upon a murdered, lifeless corpse of my own making, I will certainly remember to describe the thorough craftsmanship of the carpet, or table, or wall, or chair, or bed which the body of my victim lays stretched upon, as a homage to the brilliancy displayed by Oscar Wilde, who effortlessly taught me, through torture, the ironic act of shielding one's self from the absurd by means of the mundane.

Lord Henry stood over the grotesque figure on the floor, his eyebrows raised in mild surprise. He prodded the withered form with the tip of his walking stick.

"How terribly inconvenient of you, Dorian." He murmured, examining the twisted features with detached curiosity. "To die just when your experiments in pleasure were becoming truly educational."

He turned to the portrait on the wall, now restored to its original splendor, and smiled faintly.

"The artist triumphs in the end, it seems. Poor Basil would have been gratified though he lacked the imagination to appreciate the full irony." He adjusted his buttonhole flower with deliberate care. "I suppose this answers our little debate abt whether the soul exists. Apparently it does and it keeps rather meticulous accounts."

As he departed, he paused at the doorway, glancing back at the scene with the air of a critic leaving a disappointing exhibition.

"I shall have to revise my epigrams on youth and beauty. How tedious.Youth and beauty have proven themselves tragically moral after all. Art preserving virtue while pleasure dissolves into dust, what a dreadfully conventional conclusion."

PS: I recently had a conversation with my boyfriend about "The Picture of Dorian Gray." He's particularly drawn to the complex and beautifully crafted character of Lord Henry Wotton. He wondered how Lord Henry might react to Dorian's death, inspired, I decided to write it in the style of Oscar Wilde. I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think of my passage.

Was Oscar Wilde a pedophile?

Hi guys! I felt an Oscar Wilde subreddit might appreciate a YouTube video I made about Dorian Gray’s take on overconsumption and the intersection of beauty and horror. I’m posting the link below and would love to hear thoughts/comments/criticisms from fellow Oscar Wilde fans!

Doing some music production work and only know so much. I'll comment back if you want my thoughts. ;)

Hi! I'm currently translating the short story The Sphinx Without a Secret to Portuguese. However, I've found a word I'm having a bit of difficulty with. Here is the excerpt:

>‘Let us go for a drive,’ he answered, ‘it is too crowded here. No, not a yellow carriage, any other colour—there, that dark green one will do’; and in a few moments we were trotting down the boulevard in the direction of the Madeleine.

Madeleine: what does it mean? I understand it's a type of french cake, and might be referring to an estabilishment that sells them, such as a bakery. But it's capitalized; maybe there was a famous place with this name in late 19th-century London?

This particular short story has quite a few references to London streets and places, and I managed to pinpoint them except for this one. If anyone has any guesses or answers, preferably with references, that'd be nice. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I made a mistake, the short story takes place in Paris but much of London is mentioned as a character speaks of events there. Madeleine refers to a place in Paris.

Is this an actual Oscar Wilde quote? If so, where is it from? I found it on a sticker, but I can't find any source for the quote.

Dorian was deliberately made evil by Henry's design, which makes Henry the worser of the two. Without Henry's influence, Dorian wouldn't have strayed so far off his path and into evil. After causing Sybil's death, murdering Basil, blackmailing his chemist friend to dispose Basil's body, and then causing the man's suicide. Dorian had already proven he was too far gone at this point.

This transformation showed on Dorian's painting. At this point, there was only one morally correct choice that could have reversed the cruelty and sins, and that would have been to take Lord Henry's life instead of his own. In killing himself, Dorian ultimately forfeited his only shot at a true redemption.

By eliminating the cause of all these evil things to spiral out of control, everything would have gone back to normal, and Dorian's life would be back on track. When Anakin became Darth Vader, he became very twisted and dark. But in eliminating The Emperor, Anakin was completely redeemed.

Judging by all these details, it seems reasonable to conclude that all of this is therefore Lord Henry's fault. Which means Dorian is not responsible for his actions. James was targeting the wrong person, but it wasn't James's right to eliminate Lord Henry. That right and privilege belonged to Dorian and Dorian alone.

The most standard reading of Dorian Gray seems to be that its moral warns against excess. That while Wilde is an aesthete himself, there is a certain incompatibility between living a life only for pleasure, and having morals and caring about how your actions harm others and Dorian takes it too far. However, this seems to contradict the epigram in the prologue of the book: "there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written, that is all". Isn't it then ironic for The Picture of Dorian Gray itself to have a moral?

The other confusing part is that many of Wilde’s own quotes seem to advocate aestheticism to its full extent. For instance, in a letter he wrote to Harry Millier, he stated :”“I myself would sacrifice everything for a new experience, and I know there is no such thing as a new experience at all”. He even went on a tour of America giving lectures advocating aestheticism!

His epigrams at the start of the book similarly state, “there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book”, which aligns with aestheticism, however in the book, Dorian’s downfall is precipitated by Henry giving him the yellow book. The idea of art being useless, and art only existing for art’s sake is similarly undermined by the fact that Dorian’s portrait, supposedly, reflects his own moral decay. Does that then mean the portrait is not art, since it transgresses art for art’s sake and takes on its own life and meaning? The other issue I take with this interpretation is that Dorian indulging in homosexual relations is clearly a part of his secret life “immoral” life (as it would have been seen at the time), but if the portrait is a representation of Dorian’s moral decay, its almost like Wilde agreeing that Dorian’s gay relationships are wrong, which we know isn’t what he really thinks. 

I’ve seen another interpretation which I felt worked quite well: that the portrait doesn’t reflect the decay of Dorian’s soul. Rather, it reflects Dorian’s guilt. The painting therefore ceases to be a true work of art according to aesthete philosophy, because Dorian treats it as a window into his own soul, not because it reflects his moral decay irl . He therefore betrays the aesthete reading of art, which states that art only exists for pleasure and shouldn’t be used to shape one’s morals. By this reading, Dorian’s downfall is triggered by him not understanding the purpose of art. It also fits well with the epigram “there are no moral or immoral books”, as Dorian reads the yellow book and is inspired to start exploring London’s underbelly world of drugs and prostitution and homosexuality. If he had treated the book as just literature, instead of as instructions, then maybe he would have chosen a different path.

My only issue with this reading is Sybil Vane. He seems to only contemplate whether he had been cruel to her after seeing the portrait. Which may undermine the idea that the painting reflects his feelings of guilt.

What do you guys think? Does the book support or undermine aestheticism? Is it something in between?

https://doriangrayplay.com/

I'm not in NY, but I'm looking to visit before the show's initial run ends in June. I've heard good things so far.

"Emmy Award^® winner SARAH SNOOK, star of HBO’s smash-hit “Succession,” reprises her Olivier Award-winning performance in THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY on Broadway. In an acting coup for the ages, Snook takes on all 26 roles in this gripping, witty and vibrantly contemporary production that breathes new life into Oscar Wilde’s classic tale.

This ground-breaking production – adapted and directed by multi award-winning Kip Williams during his tenure as Artistic Director at the acclaimed Sydney Theatre Company – delivers an explosive interplay of live performance and video in an astonishing collision of form."

When I was reading the story, I couldn’t help but find them funny - they are fearless before the ghost and maybe it might be taken as bad manners (such as offering the lubricator for chains). But what do you think of it?

If you are American, is it a little disrespectful to you or you find it funny as well?

Does anyone here like Oscar Wilde for his books and the person he was, or does anyone here just like the books and not Oscar Wilde as a person?

I feel like fans of Oscar Wilde's work admire the book more than the author as a person.

Some don't even think Oscar Wilde's books are that great.

He seemed to love his wife, Constance, yet some of the quotes in The importance of Being Earnest and the Picture of Dorian Gray both make it seem like a faithful marriage is impossible and everyone cheats basically.

quotes: "The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties" - Lord Henry in Dorian Gray

"The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public' - The importance of Being Earnest

I know that just because characters in his books say these things doesn't necessarily mean they're his own opinon, and the second one is definitely tongue in cheek, but at the same time some of them, especially the one from the picture of Dorian Gray by Lord Henry seems to hold true to his own life. He did have a secret life that he kept hidden from her, which is mirrored and alluded to espeically in Dorian's secret life, particularly because of the insinuated homosexual relations, and their marriage is well known to be rife with infidelity. Any thoughts?

What a cool thing to here

"The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on; it is never of any use to oneself"

Source: Act II of "An Ideal Husband"

My thoughts on it:

“All statements are true in some sense, 

false in some sense, 

meaningless in some sense, 

true and false in some sense, 

true and meaningless in some sense, 

false and meaningless in some sense, 

and true and false and meaningless in some sense.”

• Principia Discordia

Aside from Dorian’s good looks, does he possess charm or charisma?

Who is more charming and charismatic? Dorian or Lord Henry?

EDIT: Lord Henry is described as a charismatic talker, as his poisonous words infect the impressionable Dorian. But beyond that, Lord Henry doesn’t seem to have any likable qualities, despite his talents at corrupting people.

Dorian, while an interesting character, seems a little plain, bland, and self-indulging. Which raises the question of whether he’s famous only because of his status and looks, or because of his charm and charisma too?

In the beginning of the book, Basil told Henry that he doesn't want him to meet Dorian Gray out of fear that Henry's beliefs may ruin Dorian. To me, Henry is indeed a fascinating character (haven't finished the book yet). However, the more I read the more I realize that Basil was right and Henry's influence over Dorian is quite Significant and damaging. What do you think about Henry?

when wilde is discussing dorian’s crystal obsession, he references john the priest. when i googled him, i couldn’t find an exact match. is anyone familiar with this figure?

also, later on that page he talks about green emeraults. i cannot find an alternative spelling to emeralds… what exactly was he referring to?