should be visited upon his portrait rather than
himself, and through some means never really ex-
plained, that is exactly what happens.
Gray’s life becomes increasingly degenerate.
He abandons his first mistress so cruelly that she
kills herself, escapes vengeance at the hands of her
outraged brother, and becomes increasingly dis-
turbed by the horrible transformation evident in
his portrait. Although still a determined libertine,
he now suspects that he has somehow been duped
into a tragic trap and avenges himself by murder-
ing the man who first suggested that he lead the
kind of life he has chosen. Ultimately, he decides
to change things before it is too late and destroys
the painting, but in doing so he kills himself. His
body then assumes all of the repulsive features of
the painting, which has itself reverted to its origi-
nal state.
The novel is very unevenly written, the tone
varying enormously from beginning to end, and
Wilde was not clear about the moral relationship
among the characters. Is Gray guilty of having cho-
sen a life of sinfulness, or does the guilt lie with the
artist who somehow imbued the painting with the
power to tempt Gray away from the life he would
otherwise have lived? There have been several at-
tempts to bring the story to the screen, but the
1945 version is the most effective and is fairly
faithful to the plot, although it mixes the charac-
ters somewhat. The concept of good and evil hav-
ing separate existences within a single individual
was repeated in THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL
AND MR. HYDE(1896) by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Pierce, Tamora(1954– )
Almost all of Tamora Pierce’s published fantasy to
date has been for a young adult audience and, al-
though not all in the same series, has the common
setting of her alternate world, Tortall. She made
her debut with Alanna: The First Adventure(1983),
which introduced her main character, a teenaged
girl who refuses to accept the limitations placed on
her sex. Disguised as a boy, she enters a military
school under an assumed name and slowly begins
to win the respect of her fellow students. The on-
going effort to conceal the fact that she is female
adds considerable complexity, as does her growing
ability to manipulate magic, another secret she
conceals from her companions.
Still pretending to be male, she becomes the
bodyguard to a prince in In the Hand of the God-
dess(1984), although he knows her secret. The
Woman Who Rides Like a Man(1986), the high
point in the series, tests her severely when she is
captured by barbarian warriors and is also torn be-
tween her growing love for two different men.
Pierce does not shy away from the internal con-
flict as well as the physical battles her character
must fight. Her romantic entanglements become
even more complicated in the final volume in the
series, Lioness Rampant(1988), but everything is
eventually resolved.
Wild Magic(1992), the first book in a new se-
quence, has another female protagonist, this one
a young woman who has a magical ability to com-
municate with animals, which may prove crucial
to her people, who are facing a supernatural
threat. She takes the animals’ part in Wolf-
Speaker(1994), becomes involved in negotiations
toward peace in Emperor Mage(1995), and visits
the gods themselves in The Realm of the Gods
(1996). The Protector of the Small series fol-
lowed, consisting of First Test(1999), Page(2000),
Squire(2001), and Lady Knight(2002). Keladry is
the first girl to openly begin training as a knight,
and her biggest problem consists of the male stu-
dents, who are determined that she will fail. The
series chronicles her early career and the way in
which she overcomes obstacles and wins the re-
spect of her colleagues.
Her next series was the Circle of Magic, which
includes Sandry’s Book(1999), Tris’s Book(1999),
Daja’s Book(2000), and Briar’s Book(2000). The
four novels chronicle a series of adventures of four
young friends, each of whom has a different magi-
cal power. Their adventures continue in the Circle
Opens sequence—Magic Steps(2001), Street Magic
(2002), Cold Fire(2003), and Shatterglass(2004).
Most recently she has begun the Daughter of the
Lioness series with Trickster’s Choice(2003) and
Trickster’s Queen(2004), in which Alanna’s daugh-
ter is cast in the role of a spy.
Pierce is notable for her use of assertive, com-
petent female characters who refuse to be limited
by custom or the lowered expectations of those274 Pierce, Tamora