Introduction by Jeffrey Eugenides • Nominated as one of America¡¯s best-loved novels by PBS¡¯s The Great American Read

Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde¡¯s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author¡¯s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray¡¯s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel¡¯s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, ¡°a terrible moral in Dorian Gray.

¡± Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde¡¯s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray¡¯s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, ¡°Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.¡±