Much like Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, I thought I knew Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and after consuming it, I realized I’d known nothing.
This was my first exposure to Wilde, a figure who had orbited the outer periphery of my literary solar system—somewhere out past Pluto. I knew he was flamboyant and persecuted for his sexuality. His writing is dense with description. He was fond of coloring everything and had a penchant for flowers. And he used his characters to express very scandalous opinions, even by today’s standards. This book is worth reading with that in mind.
I don’t know about the rest of Wilde’s body of work, but the elements of horror present in The Picture of Dorian Gray are artful and should delight any fan of the gothic. Having read this title, I’m moving into The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft for my bedtime reading, so it should serve as an adequate segue.
2025.02.05 – 2025.03.30