The Picture of Dorian Gray edition of the novel; nonetheless, by June 1891, Wilde was defending "The Picture of Dorian Gray" against accusations that it was a bad book. In the essay "The Artist as Critic", Oscar Wilde said that: In the 19th century, the critical reception of the novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890) was poor. The book critic of "The Irish Times" said, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was "first published to some scandal." Such book reviews achieved for the novel a "certain notoriety for being 'mawkish and nauseous', 'unclean', 'effeminate' and 'contaminating'." Such moralistic scandal arose from the novel's homoeroticism, which
Dorian, an Imitation and Diana, Princess of Wales, particularly over the time period from June 1981, the time of the Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer, up to 1997, the year of Princess Diana's death. The novel adheres closely to Wilde's original in its overall plot, with retaining the names of the key characters Dorian Gray, Henry Wootton, and Basil Hallward (with Hallward receiving the short nickname 'Baz'). Updates in Self's novel compared to the Wilde original include the following: Dorian, an Imitation Dorian, an Imitation is a British novel by Will Self. The book is a modern take