Dive into a gothic world of obsession, excess, and debauchery with this stunning edition of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.Artist Basil Hallward has sent a gift. A portrait that perfectly captures young Dorian Gray's handsome features. When Lord Henry tempts Dorian with a new lifestyle of hedonism and pleasure, he realizes that he would sell his soul for an eternity of debauchery. Oscar Wilde's only published novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is a dark and sinful story of excess and vice.This collectible edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray features:An elegant faux-leather cover with foil-embossed designsIntroduction by a notable scholarUnabridged textThis haunting classic is a perfect gift or a wonderful addition to your home library.Essential volumes for the shelves of every classic literature lover, Chartwell Deluxe Editions offer beautifully presented works from some of the most important authors in literary history. Other deluxe classics from Chartwell include Little Women, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Anne of Green Gables, The Inferno, Dracula, The Republic, The Iliad, Meditations, and Irish Fairy and Folk Tales.
Oscar Wilde was an 19th century Irish writer whose works include the play The Importance of Being Earnest and the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. He is also one of the Victorian era's most famous dandies, a wit whose good-humored disdain for convention became less favored after he was jailed for homosexuality. Wilde grew up in a prosperous family and distinguished himself at Dublin's Trinity College and London's Oxford. He published his first volume of poems in 1881 and found work in England as a critic and lecturer, but it was his socializing (and self-promotion) that made him famous, even before the 1890 publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray. In 1895, at the height of his popularity, his relationship with the young poet Lord Alfred Douglas was declared inappropriately intimate by Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde sued for libel, but the tables were turned when it became clear there was enough evidence to charge Wilde with "gross indecency" for his homosexual relationships. He was convicted and spent two years in jail, after which he went into self-imposed exile in France, bankrupt and in ill health.