The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I have always been interested in the story of Dorian Gray and since seeing the film (2009 edition), I was just aching to read the book which my dad was so conveniently reading.

This book is typical of it's age and I believe many people with little reading experience will find this a bore or maybe get a bit lost in it's lexical usage. I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I loved the intrinsic descriptions and how Oscar Wilde obviously put a lot of thought into how one would develop a picture in their heads of Dorian and what is happening socially around him.

What I found really interesting was reading the introduction and the history behind Oscar Wilde and how this book came about. It states how at first this book was meant to be a short story published in a magazine in 1980 which Wilde later revised and developed into more chapters and published as a book in 1981. Apparently, Wilde made several changes to the book to make it more appealing to the public's narrow-mindedness since they were appalled by Wilde's frankness to Dorian Gray's homosexuality which was used in a court conviction as a reflection on Wilde's sexuality, which was of course illegal back then.  

All in all, this book was an excellent read which I would suggest to people who have the time to read through a book clearly to truly appreciate the exquisite detail and to people who have a love for classic literature.


From Rory With Love