The Picture of Dorian Gray

‘The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty’

In Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, so enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence.

Oscar Wilde'sThe Picture of Dorian Gray was a succe`s de scandale. Early readers were shocked by its hints at unspeakable sins, and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895.

This definitive edition includes a selection of contemporary reviews condemning the novel’s immorality, and a preface by Peter Ackroyd.