The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

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Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Author: Oscar Wilde

Release Date: October 1, 2008 [EBook #26740]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY ***

Produced by David Clarke, Chuck Greif and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

BY

OSCAR WILDE

LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL,

HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD.

PARIS

ON SALE AT YE OLD PARIS BOOKE SHOPPE

11 RUE DE CHATEAUDUN

_Registered at Stationers' Hall and protected
under the Copyright Law Act.

First published in complete book form in 1891 by
Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co. (London),

First printed in this Edition April 1913,
Reprinted June 1913, September 1913,
June 1914, January 1916
October 1916._

_See the Bibliographical Note on certain Pirated and Mutilated
Editions of "Dorian Gray" at the end of this present volume._

THE PREFACE

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal
the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another
manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of
autobiography.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without
being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the
cultivated. For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well
written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing
his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not
seeing his own face in a glass.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist,
but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect
medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true
can be proved.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympath