This is a gothic horror story that has been much censored and sanitised over the years in its myriad of editions. Dorian Gray is a handsome, ever-youthful, rich and charming man about town. He has everything going for him in high society, until an artist completes his portrait and captures his beauty. Dorian is so enamored with it that he sells his soul in order to retain his comeliness. As his life progresses, his descent into corruption while still remaining young takes on a relationship of horror with his portrait.
Oscar Wilde was born in 1854 and became famous as an Irish dramatist and wit. He was first sent for trial in 1895 and was imprisoned for his homosexuality, and died in 1900 after his conversion to the Catholic Church. This is perhaps the only Oscar Wilde publication that can be considered a tough read, and it is his only novel. It begins in his usual whimsical style but rapidly descends to full horror. It retains its status of a literature classic as a study of vice, moral decay and emotional corruption. It took literature out of the Victorian age into modern times, highlighting the decay of the London underworld at the time. Much of the disguised homo-erotic content has often been expunged from subsequent editions. Wilde himself, commenting on this work once said: ‘Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.’