In this graphic novel adaptation of Oscar Wilde's classic story, Dorian Gray hides a monstrous secret in his attic--a portrait that ages and shows the results of his hedonistic and selfish lifestyle while he remains ever-youthful and handsome.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Dorian Gray is the subject of a full-length portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist who is impressed and infatuated by Dorian's beauty; he believes that Dorian's beauty is responsible for the new mode in his art as a painter. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, and he soon is enthralled by the aristocrat's hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual fulfilment are the only things worth pursuing in life. Newly understanding that his beauty will fade, Dorian expresses the desire to sell his soul, to ensure that the picture, rather than he, will age and fade. The wish is granted, and Dorian pursues a libertine life of varied and amoral experiences; all the while his portrait ages and records every soul-corrupting sin. This case laminate collector's edition includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket.

Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray / Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray. Englisch | Deutsch Zweisprachige Ausgabe. Übersetzt von Hedwig Lachmann und Gustav Landauer Originaltitel: The Picture of Dorian Gray. Erstdruck in: »Lippincott's Monthly Magazine«, Juli 1890. Erste Buchausgabe (mit 6 neuen Kapiteln und vielen Änderungen): London, New York, Melbourne (Ward Lock and Co.) 1891. Hier in der Übers. v. Hedwig Lachmann und Gustav Landauer. Neuausgabe. Großformat, 210 x 297 mm Herausgegeben von Karl-Maria Guth. Berlin 2018. Textgrundlage ist die Ausgabe: Wilde, Oscar: Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray. Übers. v. Hedwig Lachmann und Gustav Landauer, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1972 Umschlaggestaltung von Thomas Schultz-Overhage. Gesetzt aus der Minion Pro, 11 pt.

Dorian Gray is the decadent archetype, anti-hero of Oscar Wildes only novel, an underground classic which scandalized society upon its publication in 1890. Gray is the debauched libertine who retains a veneer of eternal youth during decades of increasingly outlandish vice, depravity and corruption, while his portrait ages and rots in an attic. Here in its rare original incarnation, the overtly homoerotic Lippincott edition, it includes an appendix sampling Wildes later revisions, with an introduction by Jeremy Reed detailing the two editions and realigning the books position in the history of subversive underground fiction. With its outr elements of homosexuality, drug abuse and supernatural horror, this remains Wildes most extreme creation, a true classic of renegade literature. With a cover illustration by Aubrey Beardsley, this is the only available edition of Dorian Gray in its original, uncut form. Solar Nocturnal presents classic texts by key forerunners of modernism

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3 (B), University of Freiburg (English Faculty), course: Oscar Wilde Proseminar, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper will be separated into three main parts. The first examines late-Victorian moral values, literary standards as well as Oscar Wildes view of art and its criticism. The second part explores reactions of the audience, especially the press, to Wildes novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.. The third part then critically analyses these arguments and explains the role Victorian values and the resulting literary expectation played in the criticism."

The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and becomes infatuated with him, believing his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new hedonism, Lord Henry suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfilment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than he. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, and when he subsequently pursues a life of debauchery, the portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging.

Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author’s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in Dorian Gray”.