The Picture of Dorian Gray (Vintage Classics)

By: Oscar Wilde

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Synopsis: Introduction by Jeffrey Eugenides • Nominated as one of America&’s best-loved novels by PBS&’s The Great American Read Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde&’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author&’s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray&’s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it ﬁrst appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel&’s corrupting inﬂuence, he responded that there is, in fact, &“a terrible moral in Dorian Gray.&” Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde&’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray&’s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, &“Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.&”