Gothic · Drama
The Picture of Dorian Gray
A beautiful young man stays young forever, while his portrait in the attic shows every sin.
Five levels, about 80 languages
- A2ElementaryShort sentences and everyday words.
- B1IntermediateYou follow clear stories about familiar things.
- B2Upper intermediateLonger sentences, richer vocabulary.
- C1AdvancedClose to the original, lightly condensed.
- C2ProficientThe complete novel.
One purchase is one book, in one language, at one level: $4.99. Another level of a book you own is $1.99. Editions nobody has asked for yet are written on request: chapter 1 in a few minutes, the rest while you read. How the levels work.
About the book
The portrait
The painter Basil Hallward has finished his finest work, a portrait of a young man of extraordinary beauty, Dorian Gray. In Basil’s studio, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a witty, idle aristocrat who tells him that youth and beauty are the only things worth having, and that he will soon lose both. Looking at the portrait, Dorian wishes aloud that the picture could grow old instead of him. Oscar Wilde published the novel in 1890, and revised it the following year after critics attacked it as immoral.
Why it works for learners
The plot is simple and gothic: a wish, its fulfillment and the consequences, each step clear. It’s short, and the cast is small. The vocabulary is art, beauty, society and conscience: portrait, face, mirror, youth, age, sin, secret.
The difficulty, and the pleasure, is Lord Henry. Nearly everything he says is an epigram, a short, elegant paradox designed to shock: “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” Lines like that are hard to simplify without losing their point, and they’re the reason to read Wilde at a higher level.
Which level to start at
B2 is the best start: you’ll follow the epigrams and the moral arc. B1 gives you the gothic story clearly, which is worth having, though Lord Henry loses some sparkle. At C1 and C2, Wilde’s language is the main event; the sentence translation helps whenever a paradox needs unpacking.
Read next
- Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, another Victorian tale of a double life
- The Canterville Ghost, Wilde in a lighter mood
- The Great Gatsby, beauty, money and illusion in 1920s New York