The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

When published in 1890, Oscar Wilde's version of the Faust myth, wherein a fashionable young man sells his soul for eternal youth while his portrait grows old, was attacked for its mawkish and nauseous tone. However, the novel has fascinated readers for over a century. This Paperback Classic edition includes an Introduction by Quentin Crisp. 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.