Audiobook · read by volunteers
Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Read by John Gonzalez · 13 chapters · 6 h 11
About the book
Dorian Gray is young, rich and astonishingly beautiful, and when the painter Basil Hallward finishes his portrait, Dorian makes a reckless wish: that the picture might grow old while he stays as he is. Under the influence of the witty and corrupting Lord Henry Wotton, he plunges into a life of pleasure and indulgence, and gradually discovers what the portrait is willing to show. Oscar Wilde's only novel mixes drawing-room epigrams with a dark moral fable about vanity, responsibility and the price of living only for oneself. London society glitters on the surface while something terrible waits in an upstairs room. John Gonzalez reads all thirteen chapters in around six hours, a good length for an elegant, unsettling classic of Victorian gothic fiction.
Introduction
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish writer and wit, a leading figure of the aesthetic movement in late Victorian London. The Picture of Dorian Gray is his only novel. It first appeared in a magazine in 1890 and was published as a book in 1891. It was controversial from the start, with critics accusing it of immorality, and Wilde defended it, adding a preface that contains some of his best-known remarks about art.
The story follows Dorian, who becomes the subject of a portrait that takes on the marks of age and conscience while he keeps his youth. It is both a gothic tale in the tradition of the double and a witty comedy of manners, since Lord Henry's paradoxes provide much of the dialogue. Beneath the sparkle lies a serious question: what happens to a person who treats beauty and pleasure as the only values?
This recording has 13 chapters, lasts about 6.2 hours and is read by a single LibriVox volunteer, John Gonzalez.
Today the novel remains startlingly modern in its concern with image, ageing and the cost of living behind a mask. Listeners will find a polished, quotable text and a plot that grows steadily darker. It is an excellent choice for an evening of atmospheric listening, and for those who know the title but not the book. The novel also makes an excellent audiobook because so much of it depends on conversation. Lord Henry's remarks seem harmless and then gradually reveal their danger, and a good reading lets the listener feel Dorian's slow transformation from innocence to something much colder.
Public domain
Oscar Wilde died in 1900: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text