Discover the story of The Picture of Dorian Gray with this striking collector's edition from Union Square & Co.'s Signature Editions series! The classic texts that shaped our culture feature exclusive cover art by distinguished artist Malika Favre. Her bold, graphic style gives each classic literature book a small masterpiece for a jacket. Collect the set or prize this The Picture of Dorian Gray special edition as your showpiece literary classic.
Handsome young Dorian Gray sees a painter's stunning portrait of him and becomes transfixed by his own beauty. Troubled by the knowledge that the painting will remain handsome while he himself will wither, Dorian exchanges his soul for eternal youth. From that point on, Dorian lives a life of hedonistic indulgence, knowing that only the painting will show his moral corruption.
Literary history and meaning: The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, was first published in 1890. Wilde's first and only novel delivers a scathing critique of Victorian society's superficial judgments and hypocrisy. The novel provokes philosophical thought on the duality of human nature and the ethical consequences of surrendering to one's baser instincts. Though controversial in its time, The Picture of Dorian Gray continues to be a celebrated literary work and it resonates with twenty-first century readers, posing questions about who we are versus how we present ourselves in our social profiles, online and offline, and the high cost of prioritizing image over ethics.
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.
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