The Picture of Dorian Gray and expanded the personal background of the characters. After the initial publication of the magazine edition of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890), Wilde expanded the text from 13 to 20 chapters and obscured the homoerotic themes of the story. In the novel version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1891), chapters 3, 5, and 15 to 18, inclusive, are new; and chapter 13 of the magazine edition was divided, and became chapters 19 and 20 of the novel edition. In 1895, at his trials, Oscar Wilde said he revised the text of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" because of
The Picture of Dorian Gray he told the publisher, George Lippincott, "in its present condition there are a number of things an innocent woman would make an exception to. ..." Among the pre-publication deletions that Stoddart and his editors made to the text of Wilde's original manuscript were: (i) passages alluding to homosexuality and to homosexual desire; (ii) all references to the fictional book title "Le Secret de Raoul" and its author, Catulle Sarrazin; and (iii) all "mistress" references to Gray's lovers, Sibyl Vane and Hetty Merton. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was published on 20 June 1890, in the July issue of "Lippincott's Monthly