The Picture of Dorian Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published complete in the July 1890 issue of "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine". Fearing the story was indecent, the magazine's editor without Wilde's knowledge deleted roughly five hundred words before publication. Despite that censorship, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding the public morality. In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press, although he personally
The Picture of Dorian Gray another." The name of Dorian Gray's love interest, Sibyl Vane, may be a modified fusion of the title of Disraeli's best known novel ("Sybil") and Vivian Grey's love interest Violet Fane, who, like Sibyl Vane, dies tragically. There is also a scene in "Vivian Grey" in which the eyes in the portrait of a "beautiful being" move when its subject dies. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" originally was a novella submitted to "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine" for serial publication. In 1889, J. M. Stoddart, an editor for Lippincott, was in London to solicit novellas to publish in the magazine. On 30