Description

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only novel written by Oscar Wilde, first published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890, then as a book in 1891. It is a gothic horror and moral fantasy, which retells the Faustian story of a man selling his soul to the devil for power, money or knowledge.
Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man, who wants to keep his youth and beauty, while his portrait grows old and ugly under the weight of his sins.
The gothic central themes are: the double nature of man; appearance and reality; good and evil. The novel also explores ideas of hedonism and aestheticism.
Victorians were deeply shocked by the story, which was used as evidence of Wilde’s lack of moral values at his trial.