Picture of Dorian Gray (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Classics) Paperback - 1997

About this book

From the rear cover

Spellbound before his own portrait, Dorian Gray utters a fateful wish. In exchange for eternal youth he gives his soul, to be corrupted by the malign influence of his mentor, the aesthete and hedonist Lord Henry Wotton. The novel was met with moral outrage by contemporary critics who, dazzled perhaps by Wilde's brilliant style, may have confused the author with his creation, Lord Henry, to whom even Dorian protests, 'You cut life to pieces with your epigrams.'. Encouraged by Lord Henry to substitute pleasure for goodness and art for reality, Dorian tries to watch impassively as he brings misery and death to those who love him. But the picture is watching him, and, made hideous by the marks of sin, it confronts Dorian with the reflection of his fall from grace, the silent bearer of what is in effect a devastating moral judgement.

First Edition Identification

Ward, Lock published a First UK Edition, First Printing hardcover in 1891, London. The edition is characterized by vellum backed boards. 

Charles Carrington published a First Illustrated Edition, First Printing in 1908, Paris. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in purple morocco, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, and gilt edges.

John Lane Bodley Head & Dodd Mead published a First Illustrated Edition Thus, First Printing in 1925, US. The edition is bound in cloth boards with 12 full page engravings by Henry Keen. 

Brentano’s published a First US Edition, First Printing in 1906, New York. 

The World Publishing Co., published a Towers-Books-Edition, First Printing in 1944. 

Heritage Press published a First Edition Thus, First Printing hardcover in 1957, New York.