The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray

One caveat: I never read The Picture of Dorian Gray. I knew the basic plot, perhaps because I did a unit on Oscar Wilde in middle school and read one of his shorter works - I don't remember exactly. Before I started reading this book, I thought it was going to be a mash-up of the original with some......more

Reviewed by Amy W Book provided by Cleis Press Review originally posted at Romancing the Book When a 19th century piece of literature gets an addendum, it opens a completely different set of possibilities. Author Mitzi Szereto takes Oscar Wilde’s memorable character, Dorian Gray, and continues the stor......more

Like the author, I read Oscar Wilde’s classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray as a precocious child. Also like the author, I picked up on the erotic content so skillfully buried and hinted at in the prose. Later, I read that Mr. Wilde had been forced to edit the story, and I wondered how he would h......more

Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray by Mitzi Szereto is purported to follow the adventures of an iconic character, but I think this novel suffered from a bit of misrepresentation. It was presented as a follow-up to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, so cleverly alluded to in the title, and that’s......more

Far from a typical reworking of the original, Mitzi Szereto uses her love of Wilde’s book to reimagine a life for Dorian Gray that explores so much more than Wilde’s intentions. As such, this was a moderately successful venture, with a few difficulties for me as a reader. Szereto has a deft hand wit......more