The Picture of Dorian Gray

Author: Wilde, Oscar

Classic fiction (pre c 1945)

Published on 1 April 2010 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Classics) in the United Kingdom.

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. The novel was a succès de scandale and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895. It has lost none of its power to fascinate and disturb.