The Picture of Dorian Gray

Longer revised version with 20 chapters.Dorian Gray is the subject of a full-length portrait, a very remarkable oil painting by Basil Hallward, an artist who is impressed, infatuated and enchanted 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 absorbed by the aristocrat's hedonistic and self-indulgent view: that beauty and sensual and carnal fulfilment are the only things worth pursuing in life.Dorian concerned that his beauty will fade away with age, he 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, while staying young and beautiful; all the while his portrait ages and records every sin, every wrongdoing and every misconduct against others. The picture slowly changes from a beautiful young man to a grotesque painting of an old man. Dorian keeps track of the changes for eighteen years, but silences the conscience every time that looks at the picture, even if every time is harder for him that cannot escape the guilt of his crimes. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. The magazine's editor feared the story was indecent, and without Wilde's knowledge, deleted roughly five hundred words before publication. Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding the public morality. In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press, although he personally made excisions of some of the most controversial material when revising and lengthening the story for book publication the following year.The longer and revised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray published in book form in 1891 featured an aphoristic preface-a defense of the artist's rights and of art for art's sake-based in part on his press defenses of the novel the previous year. The content, style, and presentation of the preface made it famous in its own right, as a literary and artistic manifesto. In April 1891, the publishing firm of Ward, Lock and Company, who had distributed the shorter, more inflammatory, magazine version in England the previous year, published the revised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray.