num_pages: 304
description: Enthralled by an exquisite portrait of himself, Dorian Gray makes a Faustian bargain to exchange his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Thus is he able to indulge his desires while only his picture bears the traces of his decadence and the gradual corruption of his soul.Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray was a succès de scandale. Early readers were shocked by its hints at "unspeakable sins," and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde in the trials for "acts of gross indecency" that would make him the most notorious sexual outlaw of his time. A knowing account of a secret life and an analysis of the darker side of late Victorian society, Wilde's compelling examination of art and morality still fascinates readers more than a hundred years after its first publication. This edition has all new apparatus, but retains Peter Ackroyd's introduction from the previous edition as an appendix.
language: English
title: The Picture of Dorian Gray
titlecomplete: The Picture of Dorian Gray (Penguin Classics)
characters: Basil Hallward, Adrian Singleton, James Vane, Dorian Gray, Henry Ashton, Lady Victoria Wotton, Lord Staveley, Sibyl Vane, Lady Gwendolen, Alan Campbell, Lord Henry Wotton, Duchess of Monmouth, Lady Narborough
genres: Fiction, 19th Century, LGBT, Classics, Gothic, Horror, Audiobook, Fantasy, Literature, Novels
ratings_count: 1437393
places: London, England, England
publisher: Penguin Classics