Oscar Wilde

Dublin: One City, One Book 2010 Chosen Author: Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on16th October 1854 at 21 Westland Row, Dublin. He was the second son of Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane Wilde, who wrote under the pseudonym Speranza. Ireland's leading eye and ear surgeon, William Wilde was knighted in 1864 for his services to medicine.

The family moved to 1 Merrion Square in 1855 where Lady Wilde held a regular Saturday afternoon salon with guests that included Sheridan le Fanu, Charles Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt and Samuel Ferguson.

Oscar was educated at home until he was nine, after which he attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, and spent summer months with his family in Co. Waterford, Wexford and at his father's family home in Mayo. He read classics at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1871 to 1874. Having won the Berkeley Gold Medal for Classics in Trinity, he won a scholarship to Magdalen College in Oxford where he became part of the Aesthetic movement.

Note: This 'Reading Guide' is reproduced here courtesy of Penguin Books.

DORIAN GRAY: ABOUT THE BOOK

‘If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that – for that – I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!’

Basil Hallward has found a new muse in the divinely beautiful Dorian Gray. The portrait he paints of him is the most magnificent work of his life – a tribute to Dorian’s exquisite beauty and youth. However, when Basil introduces the boy to his cynical, debonair friend Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian quickly falls under his dangerous and corrupting influence.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

'The whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own life, written before he had lived it'.

Dorian Gray is young, rich and beautiful. When he sees an exquisite portrait of himself, he is bewitched and offers his soul in exchange for eternal youth and good looks.

Under the corrupting influence of his friend Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian becomes drawn into a double life, indulging his every desire in a secret life of pleasure and excess, while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence.

And as Dorian's behaviour sinks further into debauchery and cruelty, the bargain he has struck looks set to destroy him …

(From the Penguin Edition)

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