The Pictures of Dorian Gray: A Classic To Not Miss Out On

If you’re looking to get into classics, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is for you!

This book is probably one of the best classics I have ever read; the language is complicated enough that it still reads like a classic and has thought provoking language, but all of the vocabulary is fairly common, and doesn’t require frequent references to dictionary.com in order to understand the plot.

At just over 200 pages, it’s a pretty short book, and so as long as you’re not annotating it, it’s a relatively quick read. However, I do heavily recommend

annotating this book. Many passages have had me writing full blown essays in the margins because of how incredibly it connects both to one’s personal life as well as larger scale issues.

Some of my favorite aspects of The Picture of Dorian Gray are how well done the dialogue is, both in terms of how easy it is to visualize and how much we are able to learn about the characters through their interactions.

Throughout the book all of Lord Henry’s

comments and questions that he poses while talking to Basil and Dorian are incredibly thought-provoking and often relate very well into modern politics and problems.

My biggest tip is to read this slowly and buy an edition that has large margins to write in.

I highly suggest this book for readers who enjoyed Bunny by Mona Awad, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.

Do you like reading classics?

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