[I am reading this 1890 novel in four sections, writing about each one before reading on. So far I have read two sections, and I’m half-way through. Spoiler alert: If you read this running commentary, you will find out everything that happens in the book as I read it.]
23 June 2026
Chapters 1-4
I read this a long time ago, and one of the big things I remember about it is its heady atmosphere of luxuriance and sensuality. And Lord Henry’s studiously witty epigrams, like a compendium of Wildean greatest hits. We can recite along to his see-sawing paradoxes after a few words—‘There is only one thing worse than…’—and it’s great fun. Except, fairly soon, it’s clear that Lord Henry uses them as conversation-stoppers. His take on the world seems wry, ironic. But he’s also very determined. It’s clear almost from the start that Dorian Gray has no chance against his persuasive, even seductive insistence on the now, the duty to live life before it’s too late. He makes it sound as though there isn’t a day to waste.
Wilde’s reputation is based mainly on his plays. This is his only novel, and it’s written in scenes that consist mainly of conversations. Wilde rarely indicates his characters’ states of mind beyond what we hear them say to others. I’m pretty sure that so far, the only character whose head we get inside is Lord Henry. We really start to get the measure of his pleasure-driven mindset—I think I’m using ‘pleasure’ as a euphemism—in Chapter 4. Dorian, an innocent when Lord Henry starts on him, is quick to decide that, yes, living for the pleasure of the moment is the thing. But he’s still an innocent, believing his own infatuation with a young actress to be the purest form of true love. Lord Henry, while letting Dorian believe he’s simply charmed by this, will soon set him straight. True love? He’s told us almost from the start what he thinks of that: ‘you should not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the first romance of your life.’
A few details. I suppose everybody knows the story—‘I bet he’s got a portrait in the attic,’ we might say jokingly—but I’ll pretend I don’t. It’s interesting that the man talking to the artist at the opening of the first chapter isn’t Dorian himself, but Lord Henry Wotton. He and Basil Hallward, the artist, are friends, and Lord Henry speaks as though everything in life is a kind of joke. He is satirical about Victorian society, and makes cynical-sounding pronouncements on matters of high morality and principle. I called his epigrams Wildean, as in clever but light-hearted. Some are but most, we begin to realise, are definitely not. They conceal a genuinely cynical mindset, but his charming delivery of them wrong-foots his listeners. By the end of Chapter 4, we begin to see what a corrupting influence he is going to have on Dorian. That young actress won’t have a chance with Lord Henry’s carefully groomed protégé.
But there are other things going on. Basil is very different from Lord Henry, and sincerely passionate—no other word will do—about his art. It’s this passion, and his high talk of how he has put his whole soul into the portrait of Dorian, that will become the set-up for the fantastical element of the story. It goes deep. ‘I couldn’t be happy if I didn’t see him every day. Of course sometimes it is only for a few minutes. But a few minutes with somebody one worships mean a great deal.’ And he would never, ever dream of selling it. During the trial that led to Wilde’s ruin later in the decade, quotations from this novel were used to discredit his ‘effeminate’ sexuality. In Chapter 4, Dorian wants to convince Lord Henry of the depth of his love for Sybil Vane—now there’s a name to conjure with—and he adds to the many praises he has sung to her extraordinary voice. How does he put it? ‘Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget.’ That’s how deeply Lord Henry has poor Dorian in his thrall.
Dorian has met Sybil in a dive of a theatre in the East End. He’s familiar with that part of London because he had spent time there, performing the kind of good works Lord Henry is so wittily dismissive of, regarding them as a typically English vice. Dorian is dismissive of it now, a month after meeting Lord Henry., because his passions have been diverted. In Dorian’s eyes—we’ve only had his version of her so far, breathlessly described (over several pages) to Lord Henry, her portrayal of Shakespearian heroines is utterly compelling. It’s another nod to how strangely alienating—as in, outside normal human existence—great art has to be. We can imagine Basil Hallward understanding Dorian perfectly when he tells Lord Henry how it is her acting that makes Sybil so far beyond flesh-and-blood humanity. ‘I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one’s imagination. … One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. … They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress is!’
He is shocked by Lord Henry’s suggestion that there might be a physical aspect to this passion: ‘“What are your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?” Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. “Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!”’ You can imagine how seriously Lord Henry takes these protestations. This is when Wilde lets us observe the workings of Lord Henry’s mind, as he muses on the conversation afterwards. ‘He was conscious – and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyes – that it was through certain words of his, musical words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray’s soul had turned to this white girl and bowed in worship before her.’ He seems to think he’s debating with himself, but he’s made his mind up about Dorian.
‘Yes, he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned the wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him—had already, indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own.’ And later, ‘It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to promise rich and fruitful results.’ Dorian, his laboratory rat, is already learning. During the conversation, Lord Henry must have been pleased by his growing narcissism. ‘I am a little jealous of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, [but] I must admit that I delight in it…’
…but Wilde doesn’t tell us what Lord Henry thinks about the telegram he reads when he gets home at the end of Chapter 4. Dorian is engaged to be married to Sybil.
Chapters 5-8
I suppose Sibyl Vane never stood a chance—she’s dead the night after that mutual declaration of love. But no, it wasn’t Dorian who murdered her, not literally. Sibyl takes her own life after Dorian, mortified by the banality of her performance—and with Basil and Lord Henry in the audience!—tells her she has destroyed his love for her. And he doesn’t let her down gently: ‘you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect … You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. … The world would have worshipped you, and you would have borne my name. What are you now? A third-rate actress with a pretty face.’ One thing you can say for our Dorian—he’s certainly a quick learner.
When it first appeared, The Picture of Dorian Gray was a novella, published in a magazine. I wonder if there’s actually enough substance in it for a full-length novel. Dorian’s sociopathic level of cruelty appears in Chapter 7—there’s some setting-up to do in Chapters 5 and 6 to get Basil and Lord Henry to the theatre—and, although he appears to feel genuine remorse next day it’s short-lived. It’s the picture that makes him feel bad. He is terribly disturbed by the change he sees in it—yes, this is when it starts—and wonders whether he can fix the new cruelty in its expression by behaving honourably to Sibyl. He’ll never know, because by the time he’s writing a genuine-sounding letter to her to arrange a meeting, she’s already dead. I’ll come back to that, and the sincerity or otherwise of his remorse. And to the resolution he has made before the end of Chapter 8—the same day—to embrace the power the magical picture is giving to him.
The reason I wonder about Wilde’s novel-length presentation of his moral fable is this. Half-way through—that’s where we are by the end of Chapter 8—Dorian has made his decision, and he’s going to do whatever he likes. Comparisons we might have been making with that other great fable of temptation, the Faust legend, become ever more apt. Of his own free will Dorian, like Faust, has chosen the path of hedonism. He’s decided the picture gives him licence to behave however he likes, because his ‘sins’—a word freely used in the novel, often by Lord Henry—will be undetectable in him. His young, fresh-faced, open look of innocence will be not only his protection from suspicion, but his weapon. Fine. But where can Wilde go with this, for the remaining half of the novel? Marlowe, for instance, had great difficulty squeezing any drama (or entertainment) from Dr Faustus’ 24 years of naughtiness. Will Wilde do any better?
I’ll rewind…. Last time, I’d left Dorian with his wide-eyed proclamation to Lord Henry of his love for Sibyl, then the news of his engagement. When they meet next day, Lord Henry sees there’s nothing he can do. Of course, he thinks Sibyl can be nothing special, her ‘genius’ only apparent through the eyes of love. Basil, while feeling bruised about being the last to know of the engagement, always speaks up for Dorian. He has spoken of ‘worshipping’ him, and he isn’t going to give up his infatuation any time soon. And, for whatever different reasons they might have, both he and Lord Henry take up Dorian’s invitation for them to see her act.
I hadn’t mentioned the revolting portrayal of an East End theatre that Dorian had presented to Lord Henry. Not to be outdone, the narrative takes over from where he left off, with the greasy Jewish owner given no credit for bringing Shakespeare, his own private passion, to the unwashed masses: ‘the fat Jew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with an oily tremulous smile. He escorted them to their box with a sort of pompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands…. The youths in the gallery … talked to each other across the theatre and shared their oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them. Some women were laughing in the pit. Their voices were horribly shrill and discordant.’
The locals go—and we don’t only have Dorian’s word for it now—because they are entranced by Sibyl. Except, as I’ve said, this night is different. She dances gracefully and looks beautiful at Capulet’s feast… but then she opens her mouth. ‘Her words … were spoken in a thoroughly artificial manner. The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view of tone it was absolutely false. It was wrong in colour. It took away all the life from the verse. It made the passion unreal. Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her. He was puzzled and anxious. Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to them to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly disappointed.’
The abrupt, unadorned sentences are a far cry from the usual manner of these gents’ perception of their fin-d-siècle world, full of scented exotica, lovingly conveyed through long paragraphs of sensuous description. No, this is the gritty reality of a dreadful let-down, and Dorian isn’t going to forgive her for it. The reader has already guessed what has caused the change in her before she has tried to explain to him. ‘Dorian, Dorian—before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true.’ She goes on for a whole page, before making her final plea. ‘Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to play at being in love. You have made me see that.’ His next words are his definitive answer. ‘You have killed my love.’
This is the essence of Dorian’s irredeemable nature. He has no interest in the reality of a beautiful, intuitive flesh-and-blood woman. He wants her wearing the masks made for her by Shakespeare, the great artist, not the mundane reality of what anybody else would recognise as true love. He knows, because his mentor has convinced him, that even if there is such a thing as real love, it never lasts. It’s over. He has put up no struggle whatsoever, speaking to her with utter contempt. Dorian has made his choice, and we feel that in this scene he has revealed all there is inside him. It means that if at any time we’re tempted to blame Lord Henry for everything, we should beware. In tempting Dorian in the ways of self-centred pleasure, he was pushing at an open door.
If anything, this is confirmed by the next chapter, in which Dorian is stunned into the semblance of remorse by what he sees in the portrait. ‘It had made him conscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane. It was not too late to make reparation for that. She could still be his wife. His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would be transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life.’ He has already locked himself away, telling his valet to admit nobody, and now he will do the right thing. He will write to Sibyl and tell her he’s a changed man.
But what kind of a story would that be for Wilde’s eager readers? None at all. The emotions in the letter, sounding genuine enough, last (literally) no longer than his ignorance of her suicide. True, when Lord Henry tells him the awful details, he calls himself a murderer. But, as Lord Henry blandly lets him know, that’s just silly. It takes maybe a couple of pages for him to persuade Dorian that the only important thing he must do is extricate himself from any blame. Any scandal could ruin his name, so the only option is to behave as though nothing has happened.
So he does. Maybe he pretends to himself, at first, that he would have made a real effort to undo his own cruel behaviour. But that lasts almost no time at all. Perhaps two minutes later, he is musing on his own feelings. ‘Harry, why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don’t think I am heartless. Do you?’ Of course, the ever-reassuring Lord Henry soothes him: ‘You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian.’ It’s the folly of youth, that’s all. Except we witnessed exactly how heartlessly cruel his rejection of Sibyl had been. And by the end of the chapter he has accepted Lord Henry’s invitation to the opera—a great soprano is to appear—and is ready to go.
But before that, Wilde gives himself a few pages to establish the parameters of his thought experiment. He shows us Dorian musing on whether he might pray for the restoration of the status quo. Could he change his prayer to stay young, and bring the picture back to its former self? Why not live his life growing older like everybody else? You can guess how long that thought lasts. He pretends to feel a pang for his poor old alter ego, having to go through the ravages of time and bad behaviour on his behalf. But what can he do? ‘If the picture was to alter, it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it?’ The reality is a kind of glee. ‘For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer. … What did it matter what happened to the coloured image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything.’
He’s shown himself to be a monster, and now he has his secret weapon.
We can read it for you wholesale 