Oscar Wilde · 1890 · overland

Wilde's only novel, mapped as the London it is set in. Twenty-five locations from Basil's studio in Chapter I to the schoolroom at the top of the Grosvenor Square house in Chapter XX - Mayfair, Soho, the Euston Road, a theatre in Holborn, an opium den by the docks, and a country house in Nottinghamshire that Wilde invented.

1. 1
   Basil Hallward's Studio

   Chapter I. The novel opens in the studio and its garden, where Basil is finishing the portrait and Lord Henry meets Dorian for the first time. Wilde gives no address, so the placing is inferred.

2. 2
   The Grosvenor Gallery

   Chapter I. 135-137 New Bond Street. Lord Henry urges Basil to exhibit the portrait here; Basil refuses, because he has put too much of himself into it. A real gallery, and the novel's link to the Victorian art world.

3. 3
   The Orleans Club

   Chapter II. A real gentlemen's club in King Street, St James's. Lord Henry claims he has promised to meet a man there - the sort of engagement he invents to avoid one he would rather not keep.

4. 4
   The Albany

   Chapter III. Lord Fermor's chambers off Piccadilly, where Lord Henry goes to ask about Dorian's family and is told about Margaret Devereux, the father nobody names and old Lord Kelso.

5. 5
   Burlington Street

   Chapter III. Lord Henry walking back through Mayfair after the Albany, turning over what his uncle has told him. A street the novel passes through rather than stops in.

6. 6
   Berkeley Square

   Chapter III. The square Lord Henry crosses on his way, and as good a summary as any of the world the book is set in - money, leisure, and a great deal of time to be clever in.

7. 7
   Wardour Street

   Chapter IV. Lord Henry arrives late, having been bargaining in Soho for a piece of old brocade - a small scene that tells you exactly how he spends a day.

8. 8
   The Vane Home, Euston Road

   Chapter V. Two shabby rooms north of the fashionable streets, where Sibyl is in love and her mother is calculating, and James is packing for Australia with a sailor's certainty that his sister will be ruined.

9. 9
   Marble Arch

   Chapter V. James and Sibyl walk west along the Euston Road and take an omnibus here - the one stretch of the novel that belongs to people who have to watch the fare.

10. 10
    Rupert Street

    Chapter VI. The little Italian restaurant where Dorian dines before the theatre. Wilde names the street but not the house, so this is the street rather than the door.

11. 11
    The Royal Theatre, Holborn

    Chapters VI and VII. The shabby East End theatre where Sibyl plays Juliet - and where, once she has fallen in love and stopped being able to act, Dorian destroys her in a single conversation.

12. 12
    Covent Garden

    Chapter VII. Dorian walks the city until dawn after the quarrel and comes on the flower market as the carts are unloading - the working morning going on beside him, indifferent.

13. 13
    Jermyn Street

    Chapter VIII. Where the moneylenders are. A passing reference, and one of the few hints that the life Dorian is leading is being paid for by somebody.

14. 14
    Dorian Gray's House

    Chapters I, VIII, X, XII-XIV, XIX and XX. The Grosvenor Square house, and the old schoolroom at the top of it where the portrait is locked away - the room the whole novel is arranged around.

15. 15
    South Audley Street

    Chapters X and XII. The frame-maker Mr Hubbard works from here, and it is at the corner with Grosvenor Square that Dorian meets Basil on the last night of Basil's life.

16. 16
    The Bell Tavern, Hoxton

    Chapter X. Where the inquest on Sibyl Vane is held, reported in a newspaper Dorian reads over breakfast. He does not go. That is rather the point of the chapter.

17. 17
    Blue Gate Fields

    Chapter XI. The dockland district Basil names when he confronts Dorian about the company he keeps - a real and notorious Victorian slum around what is now Cable Street.

18. 18
    Grosvenor Square Corner

    Chapter XII. The corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, where Dorian meets Basil and takes him home to show him the portrait. Wilde names both streets, which makes this the most precisely fixed spot in the book.

19. 19
    Victoria Station

    Chapters XII and XIX. Basil means to catch the midnight train to Paris and never does. The station keeps its place in the story afterwards as the alibi that has to be maintained.

20. 20
    Bond Street

    Chapter XV. Where Dorian finds a hansom, late at night, and gives the driver an address in the docks - the moment the novel turns east.

21. 21
    The Opium Den

    Chapter XVI. A low former dancing-saloon by the river. Wilde gives no address; this sits inside the Blue Gate Fields district, which is as close as the text allows.

22. 22
    Selby Royal

    Chapters XVII and XVIII. Dorian's country house, invented, placed by Wilde in Nottinghamshire. The conservatory, the guests, and Lord Henry being amusing while the host comes apart.

23. 23
    The Hunting Wood

    Chapter XVIII. The shooting party. Dorian sees something move in the undergrowth, calls out too late, and a beater's gun kills a man nobody can identify.

24. 24
    The Home Farm

    Chapter XVIII. The body is carried to an empty stable, and Dorian goes down to look at it - and finds James Vane, which he takes for deliverance and is not.

25. 25
    Dorian Gray's House

    Chapter XX. Back to the schoolroom at the top of the house, and the knife. The servants hear a cry, break in, and find a withered man on the floor and the portrait restored to what it was.