The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, an early version of which appeared in Lippincott s Monthly Magazine in 1890, is a moral fantasy novel. When published in book form in 1891, Wilde s one and only novel had six new chapters. The novel was a romantic explanation of Wilde s own Aestheticism; it told the traditional story of a young man who buys perpetual youth at the cost of his soul.