I had a problem with this novel before it even got started, with the preface. Wilde makes some blanket statements that seem, a hundred and twenty-five years later, naive and short-sighted. Such as: "The artist is the creator of beautiful things" and "To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim." Wilde's novel is the most immediate contradiction to both these statements.
The novel is the story of Dorian Gray, a very pretty young man who has a portrait painted. He is subsequently corrupted by Lord Henry, who seems more than any other character to resemble Wilde himself. Lord Henry is a misogynist, an amoralist who takes great pleasure in corrupting others.
Dorian soon discovers, after causing the suicide of a young girl who loved him, that the portrait of himself reflects the changes in his soul while his physical appearance does not change. He embarks on a terrible lifestyle, corrupting and ruining others, eventually committing murder.
I don't think this novel has aged well, certainly not as well as Dickens or Austen. The parallel with Wilde's own life is uncanny, and I have to wonder why Wilde went down the path of self-destruction that he followed after writing this novel. Also, it must have taken a colossal ego to write this novel and then be a self-proclaimed pederast.
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