The Picture Of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a gothic and moral fantasy novel by Oscar Wilde. This is the only novel he wrote and published in 1891 after heavy editing because critics and editors deemed it immoral and indecent. However, it flourished to be a masterpiece despite the controversies. The work is an archetypal tale of a young man, Dorian Gray, who barters his soul to buy eternal youth. Dorian is a subject of a portrait by Basil, an artist impressed by Dorian’s flamboyance. Dorian acknowledges that his beauty will fade, but he yearns for his youth to last and his portrait to age instead while it records every sin. The work comes with subthemes of romantic aestheticism, hedonism, and sexuality. The major three characters of the novel are a reflection of Wilde’s alter egos: who he is, who he yearns to be, and who he is perceived as.
The book has been translated into many languages, including Persian and Spanish. The Guardian listed it among the 100 best novels ever written in English, calling it "an arresting, and slightly camp, exercise in late-Victorian gothic".