'The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.'

When Dorian Gray has his portrait painted, he is captivated by his own beauty. Tempted by his world-weary, decadent friend Lord Henry Wotton, he wishes to stay forever young, and pledges his very soul to keep his good looks. Set in fin-de-siécle  London, the novel traces a path from the studio of painter Basil Hallward to the opium dens of the East End. As Dorian's slide into crime and cruelty progresses he stays magically youthful, while his beautiful portrait changes, revealing the hideous corruption of moral decay.

Ever since its first publication in 1890 Wilde's only novel has remained the subject of critical controversy.  Acclaimed by some as an instructive moral tale, it has been denounced by others for its implicit immorality. Combining elements of the supernatural, aestheticism, and the Gothic, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an unclassifiable and uniquely unsettling work of fiction.

Find the eBook on VitalSource.

Features

• A new edition that draws on the scholarship of the Oxford English Texts edition for both text and editorial apparatus.
• Reproduces the critically established 1891 text from the OET edition.
• Joseph Bristow's introduction draws on the wealth of scholarship of the last 15 years to provide the most up-to-date exploration of the novel's composition, Wilde's revisions for the 1891 edition, critical approaches, and the reputation of the novel since publication.
• Textual notes show important variants.
• Full explanatory notes identify Wilde's sources.
• Up-to-date bibliography.

ABOUT THE SERIES

For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Explanatory Notes

Oscar Wilde

Edited by Joseph Bristow.

Joseph Bristow is editor of the Oxford English Texts edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Poetry and Olive Schreiner's African Farm for OWC. He is the author of The Fin-de-Siécle Poem: English Culture and the 1890s (Ohio UP, 2005).