Oscar Wilde · 1890 · 1891 revised book edition
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) lets a young man stay beautiful forever while his portrait absorbs every mark of his cruelty. The Critical Thinker reading companion in IO reader is built for Wilde’s paradoxes in the Preface and Lord Henry’s dialogue — lines built to sound true and mean something else.
Read the opening in Reels
PART I · PARAGRAPH
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 artist is the creator of beautiful things.
The Picture of Dorian Gray · Oscar Wilde
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Surfaces hidden assumptions and second-order implications in the text.
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The facts
| Length | about 79,000 words · 5,560 sentences |
|---|---|
| In sentence cards | about 371 minutes |
| Difficulty | steady |
| First line | The artist is the creator of beautiful things. |
| Themes | Preface · Chapters I–X · Chapters XI–XX |
Is The Picture of Dorian Gray hard to read?
No — Wilde writes in quick, aphoristic dialogue, one of the more readable Gothic novels. In sentence cards it's about 371 minutes.
Which translation is this?
None needed — the 1891 revised English text, public domain.
How long is The Picture of Dorian Gray?
About 79,000 words; roughly 5,560 sentences.
Read The Picture of Dorian Gray in IO reader
Colophon
Text: 1891 revised book edition, from Project Gutenberg (pg:174). Cover: Standard Ebooks CC0 cover, oscar-wilde/the-picture-of-dorian-gray. Reviewed 2026-09-04.