The Picture of Dorian Gray: reading level, length and free edition

Name: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Author: Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a novel in English. Our team rates it B1. It runs to 79,464 words with 6,933 different word forms, about 6.5–13 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Standard Ebooks.

By the Readlang Mobile team (an independent app, not affiliated with readlang.com). Updated 31 October 2026.

Author: Oscar Wilde
Language: English
Level: B1
Form: novel
Words: 79,464
Different word forms: 6,933
Forms for 95% / 98%: 3,269 / 5,344
Reading time: 6.5–13 h
Free edition: Standard Ebooks

The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published as a serial in Lippencott’s Monthly Magazine, and the publishers thought it would so offend readers that they removed nearly 500 words without Wilde’s approval. Wilde soon expanded it and republished it as a novel, including a short preface justifying his art. Even though his contemporaries considered it so offensive that some argued for his prosecution, Dorian Gray today survives as a classic philosophical novel that explores themes of aestheticism and double lives. Couched in Wilde’s trademark cutting wit, Dorian Gray is still being adapted today, with Dorian and his moldering portrait remaining cultural touchstones.

Is The Picture of Dorian Gray right for your level?

To recognise 95% of the running words in The Picture of Dorian Gray, you need its 3,269 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 5,344. The median English B1 book in our table needs 702 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is harder than most for its level: number 17 of 21, easiest first.

A word form is any spelling that appears in the text, so “walk” and “walked” count twice, and names count too. These numbers are a guide to how much vocabulary the book asks for, not a test. The level itself was set by hand by our team. Before you commit, read one page of the free edition and count the words you do not know: the one-page test takes two minutes.

Which words should you know before you start?

These are the words that The Picture of Dorian Gray uses most often but that are not among the 2,000 most common word forms across all 309 English books in our library; the number is how many times each appears. Names of people and places are left out. Learning a handful of them first makes the opening chapters easier.

portrait 52
horrible 48
murmured 42
painter 36
hideous 32
painted 32
coloured 30
artist 29
delightful 29
sins 27
charm 26
exquisite 26
monstrous 25
romance 24
canvas 23

How does it begin?

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.

From the Standard Ebooks edition, which is in the public domain. If this paragraph already feels slow, try a book one level lower.

How long does it take to read?

Hours to read *The Picture of Dorian Gray* (79,464 words) at four reading speeds.
Words	100 wpm	150 wpm	200 wpm	250 wpm
79,464	13 h	9 h	6.5 h	5.5 h

Learners reading a book at their level often manage 100 to 150 words per minute, and readers in their first language 200 to 250. Where these speeds come from, and a calculator for your own: How long does it take to read a book?

Where can you read it for free?

The free edition is from Standard Ebooks, a volunteer project that proofreads and typesets public-domain books. Standard Ebooks releases its editions into the public domain in the United States under CC0 1.0; you can download it as EPUB, Kindle (AZW3) or KEPUB without signing up.

To read it with a translation over every word you tap, open it in Readlang Mobile on iPhone or iPad.