À rebours
The anonymous "poisonous French novel" that leads Dorian to his fall is a thematic variant of "À rebours" (1884), by Joris-Karl Huysmans. In the biography "Oscar Wilde" (1989), the literary critic Richard Ellmann said: Wilde does not name the book, but at his trial he conceded that it was, or almost [was], Huysmans's "À rebours" ... to a correspondent, he wrote that he had played a "fantastic variation" upon "À rebours", and someday must write it down. The references in "Dorian Gray" to specific chapters are deliberately inaccurate.