Publisher's Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\nThis extended moralistic fable, Oscar Wilde's longest work of fiction, was first published in 1890. It may be described as a tragedy of manners, in which a wealthy young man, endowed with great powers of physical and personal attractiveness, embarks on a hectic course of life which brings destruction to many around him, and ultimately to himself.<\/p>\n
In a response to a hostile critic in the St James Gazette, Wilde wrote of the book:<\/p>\n
\"..... they will find that it is a story with a moral. And the moral is this: All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment.<\/p>\n
The painter, Basil Hallward, worshiping physical beauty far too much, as most painters do, dies by the hand of one in whose soul he has created a monstrous and absurd vanity. Dorian Gray, having led a life of mere sensation and pleasure, tries to kill conscience, and at that moment kills himself.<\/p>\n
Lord Henry Wotton seeks to be merely the spectator of life. He finds that those who reject the battle are more deeply wounded than those who take part in it.\"<\/p>\n
Public Domain (P)2020 Voices of Today<\/p>\n
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