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THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
By: Oscar Wilde
Norton Critical Edition (1890 and 1891 versions)
W.W. Norton
September 2006
On Sale: August 29, 2006
Featuring: Lord Henry Wotton; Dorian Gray
544 pages
ISBN: 0393927547
EAN: 9780393927542
Paperback (reprint)
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Fiction
Spellbound before his own portrait, Dorian Gray utters a fateful wish. In exchange for eternal youth he gives his soul, to be corrupted by the malign influence of his mentor, the aesthete and hedonist Lord Henry Wotton. The novel was met with moral outrage by contemporary critics who, dazzled perhaps by Wilde's brilliant style, may have confused the author with his creation, Lord Henry, to whom even Dorian protests, 'You cut life to pieces with your epigrams.'. Encouraged by Lord Henry to substitute pleasure for goodness and art for reality, Dorian tries to watch impassively as he brings misery and death to those who love him. But the picture is watching him, and, made hideous by the marks of sin, it confronts Dorian with the reflection of his fall from grace, the silent bearer of what is in effect a devastating moral judgment.
 Media BuzzDiane Rehm Show - NPR - February 23, 2011
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