[I am reading this 1890 novel in three sections, writing about each one before reading on. So far I have read one section. 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 is his laboratory rat…. 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.
We can read it for you wholesale 