What if your soul aged while your body stayed forever young? The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), by Oscar Wilde, is a haunting novel that explores vanity, temptation, and the dark side of desire. The story follows Dorian Gray, a handsome young man who makes a fateful wish: that a portrait painted of him would bear the marks of time and sin, while he remains outwardly flawless. As Dorian pursues a life of pleasure and excess under the influence of the witty but dangerous Lord Henry, his hidden portrait grows ever more grotesque, reflecting the corruption of his soul. Both a Gothic tale of horror and a philosophical meditation on art, morality, and beauty, Wilde's only novel remains one of the most provocative works in English literature. Timeless and unsettling, The Picture of Dorian Gray is as relevant today as when it first shocked Victorian readers. Click "Buy Now" and enter Oscar Wilde's unforgettable exploration of vanity, desire, and the cost of eternal youth.
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Uncle Silas Sheridan Le Fanu - One of the most significant and intriguing Gothic novels of the Victorian period and is enjoyed today as a modern psychological thriller. In UNCLE SILAS (1864) Le Fanu brought up to date Mrs Radcliffe's earlier tales of virtue imprisoned and menaced by unscrupulous schemers. The narrator, Maud Ruthyn, is a 17 year old orphan left in the care of her fearful uncle, Silas. Together with his boorish son and a sinister French governess, Silas plots to kill Maud and claim her fortune. The novel established Le Fanu as a master of horror fiction.
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Vathek; An Arabian Tale William Beckford - Vathek; An Arabian Tale is a Gothic novel written by William Beckford, and first published in 1786. It tells the story of Caliph Vathek, the ninth caliph of the Abassides, who buys some glowing swords from a travelling merchant. Wanting to decipher the messages on them, he invites the merchant to dinner. However, he gets no answers and locks up the merchant, who somehow disappears in the night. Finally he finds a scholar who translates the lettering, but the next morning, the message on the swords changes. Led by an insatiable thirst, Vathek goes to a fountain to drink and comes across the merchant again, who goes back to the Court with him. Afer this, things get weirder, with the merchant being transformed into a ball and being kicked by all the townspeople, child sacrifices, and Islamic dwarfs - all in the name of Vathek trying to gain supernatural powers.
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The Purcell Papers Sheridan Le Fanu - Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (28 August 1814 7 February 1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. Three of his best known works are Uncle Silas, Carmilla and The House by the Churchyard.
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The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner James Hogg - James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a Scottish classic, a quintessentially Gothic tale of psychological horror, and a relentless attack on Calvinist dogma.Robert Wringham's family is composed of a dissolute father and brother, a pious mother, and a rival father in the person of a fanatical Calvinist minister. He comes to believe that he is one of the elect, predestined to be saved, while others are damned. Sure of his freedom from the dictates of morality, he embarks on a series of crimes in the company of a new friend Gil-Martin, a man of many likenesses who can be mistaken for Robert, and who explains that they are as one in the holy work of purifying the world. But who is Gil-Martin? And what does he truly desire? The Gothic double or doppelganger is nowhere more powerfully imagined than in Confessions of a Justified Sinner, once called 'the greatest novel of Scotland'.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical fiction and gothic horror novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. The novel-length version was published in April 1891.The story revolves around a portrait of Dorian Gray painted by Basil Hallward, a friend of Dorian's and an artist infatuated with Dorian's beauty. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton and is soon enthralled by the aristocrat's hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual fulfillment are the only things worth pursuing in life. Newly understanding that his beauty will fade, Dorian expresses the desire to sell his soul, to ensure that the picture, rather than he, will age and fade. The wish is granted, and Dorian pursues a libertine life of varied amoral experiences while staying young and beautiful; all the while, his portrait ages and visually records every one of Dorian's sins.
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A deadly secret, carried to the grave, continues to impact the lives of the living. Rosamond Frankland confronts a mysterious past that stubbornly refuses to be forgotten. The heroine must unravel a tangled web of family secrets, substitutions, and hidden letters and uncover the truth—even if it threatens to destroy everything she holds dear. The Dead Room is a gripping Gothic novel in which Wilkie Collins masterfully combines intrigue, drama, and psychological depth. The novel is published in English without adaptation or abridgement.
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Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.Shelley travelled through Europe in 1815, moving along the river Rhine in Germany, and stopping in Gernsheim, 17 kilometres (11 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where, about a century earlier, Johann Konrad Dippel, an alchemist, had engaged in experiments. She then journeyed to the region of Geneva, Switzerland, where much of the story takes place. Galvanism and occult ideas were topics of conversation for her companions, particularly for her lover and future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley.
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