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| First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? |
This book is a classic I’ve been reading for my English class. Despite the general dread surrounding the independent novel study unit, I actually like that we are “forced” to read these books, because otherwise, I might never pick them up, depriving myself of these great stories.
THE LINES
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, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.
THE BOOK
‘The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty’
Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The Picture of Dorian Gray was a succès de scandale. Early readers were shocked by its hints at unspeakable sins, and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895.
Have you read this classic? What did you think of it?
The Jinxed Goblet 