The Picture of Dorian Gray

 The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde (read by Stephen Fry)

The story begins in the studio of Basil Hallward, an artist who paints his masterpiece using the young and beautifully handsome Doran Gray as his subject. The portrait shows a young man who is beautiful and still innocent. It also holds Hallward's secret...that Gray is the inspiration for all of his artwork now. When Gray sees the portrait, he expresses the wish that instead of the portrait showing him forever young and innocent, that he--himself--would remain forever young and continue to look innocent while the portait held the scars and signs of age and sin. Gray falls under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton, a man who speaks the most appalling nonsense. Most people declare that Wotton can't possibly believe everything he says, but Gray takes it all as gospel. And as he begins a life that follows the precepts Wotton claims to believe in, he notices an odd thing about the painting...

I've read this a couple of times before...once in 2010 when the blog was young. For a more detailed look at my thoughts on the novel, please see my review HERE and a comparison to Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (which I took part in at the time) HERE. For this review, I'm more focused on the audio novel version I listened to which was read by Stephen Fry. Fry is delightful to listen to--especially as a last half hour before bedtime treat. His performance of the story was pitch perfect and I enjoyed every minute. It was easy to recognize who was speaking in the book even when the text didn't immediately identify them. If Wilde's work didn't rate five stars (which it does), I would most certainly give this audio version five stars (and I have ★★★★★). 

First line: The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, of the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

Last line: It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.