The Picture of Dorian Gray

by

Oscar Wilde


THE PREFACE

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 highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without
being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated.
For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things
mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban
seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of
Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man
forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality