The Picture of Dorian Gray
A young man wishes his portrait would age instead of him, and gets his wish. Wilde fills it with the best talk he ever wrote and then makes you watch what the talk costs.
Things worth knowing
- The editor at Lippincott's went through Wilde's typescript in pencil, cutting material he feared readers would find offensive, and Wilde did not see the changes until the novel was in print.
- At the 1895 libel trial Edward Carson read passages aloud and asked whether Basil Hallward's feelings for Dorian were proper; Wilde answered that they were what an artist feels on meeting a beautiful personality.
- The Scots Observer called the book fit for none but outlawed noblemen and perverted telegraph boys, pointing readers at a male brothel the police had recently raided in Cleveland Street.
Listen, or read along
Every chapter has the recording and the same chapter as text. Open both if you like: the text is the words you are hearing.
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1 The Preface 2 min
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2 Chapter One, Part One 15 min
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3 Chapter One, Part Two 15 min
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4 Chapter Two, Part One 19 min
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5 Chapter Two, Part Two 16 min
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6 Chapter Three, Part One 16 min
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7 Chapter Three, Part Two 13 min
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8 Chapter Four, Part One 17 min
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9 Chapter Four, Part Two 17 min
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10 Chapter Five, Part One 14 min
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11 Chapter Five, Part Two 12 min
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12 Chapter Six 17 min
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13 Chapter Seven, Part One 14 min
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14 Chapter Seven, Part Two 13 min
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15 Chapter Eight, Part One 16 min
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16 Chapter Eight, Part Two 16 min
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17 Chapter Nine 23 min
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18 Chapter Ten 20 min
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19 Chapter Eleven, Part One 24 min
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20 Chapter Eleven, Part Two 23 min
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21 Chapter Twelve 16 min
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22 Chapter Thirteen 15 min
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23 Chapter Fourteen, Part One 15 min
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24 Chapter Fourteen, Part Two 13 min
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25 Chapter Fifteen 20 min
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26 Chapter Sixteen 19 min
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27 Chapter Seventeen 13 min
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28 Chapter Eighteen 21 min
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29 Chapter Nineteen 21 min
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30 Chapter Twenty 11 min
Where this comes from
This recording uses the 1891 book version, the twenty-chapter text Wilde revised and expanded, rather than the shorter magazine version of 1890. Wilde died in 1900, so the book is in the public domain in the United States and in countries that protect a work for seventy years after the author's death.
Cover image: One of the 7 engravings by Eugène Dété, published in Paris by Charles Carrington, 1908.
Narration: text-to-speech.
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