Original cover page for Lippincott's Monthly containing Dorian Grey
On this date in 1897, Oscar Wilde, famed Irish author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and numerous other works, was released from prison after 2 years of hard labor. Wilde was charged and sentenced for homosexuality, considered a crime in Victorian England. Because of his treatment in England for his sexual preference, Wilde fled to Paris, where he died three years later of meningitis.
Most readers are probably familiar with Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The premise of this work surrounds the characters of Dorian Gray, the artist Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton. Hallward is commissioned to paint a portrait of Gray. Through his contact with Gray, Hallward becomes infatuated with Gray’s character and striking good looks. After meeting Lord Henry, Gray embarks into a new world of hedonism, leading to Gray selling his soul to the Devil to ensure that the portrait of himself aged but his physical body did not, ensuring his immortality. The portrait stands as a reminder to Gray of his sins of debauchery and hedonism, a picture of his tortured soul for all eternity. Read more »
The narrator has been accused of an unnamed crime by the terrible Spanish Inquisition. “I saw the lips of the black robed judges”, says the author, who are reading hims his rights and condemning him, yet the author does not hear him. The narrator finds himself in a completely black room after passing out (“swooning”) from the sheer terror of the moment. He proceeds in attempting to figure out the size of the room, during which he passes out again. On awakening, he discovers a pit in the middle of the room, a pit that he barely avoids plummeting into…. Yet again, the narrator passes out, only to awaken and realize that has predicament has changed. He has been strapped bodily to a table. He notices his surroundings, seeing a painting of Father Time on the wall; above, almost imperceptibly, swings a giant pendulum, like that of a clock. Over time, the narrator sees it moving closer…and closer…and closer. It becomes apparent that the narrator is in the arms of death and must devise and escape. Just as the “scimitar” slices through his skin, the narrator escapes falling to the floor. But then, he notices that the room is becoming unbearably hot and the walls are moving in, pushing him towards the pit. “‘Death’ I said, ‘any death but that of the pit!’” he screams. Does he survive? Will he escape from the jaws of hell?
