Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
- Date
- 1891
- Local voice
- Authorial / signed preface voice · Oscar Wilde — Preface
Meaning of “Books are well written, or badly written. That…”
The clipped conclusion makes Wilde’s aesthetic argument memorable by reducing a complicated moral debate to the quality of the writing itself.
Where does it come from?
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Preface; immediately follows the statement rejecting moral and immoral categories for books.
Why the local voice matters
This sentence immediately follows the moral/immoral-book aphorism in Wilde’s signed Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray.
