The Picture of Dorian Gray letters sent to him by the cultural critic Walter Pater. Passages revised for the novel Passages added to the novel The uncensored edition In 2011, the Belknap Press published "The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition". The edition includes text that was deleted by JM Stoddart, Wilde's initial editor, before the story's publication in "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine" in 1890. 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
The Picture of Dorian Gray theme in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1891) is aestheticism and its conceptual relation to living a double life. Throughout the story, the narrative presents aestheticism as an absurd abstraction, which disillusions more than it dignifies the concept of Beauty. Despite Dorian being a hedonist, when Basil accuses him of making a "by-word" of the name of Lord Henry's sister, Dorian curtly replies, "Take care, Basil. You go too far ..."; thus, in Victorian society, public image and social standing do matter to Dorian. Yet, Wilde highlights the protagonist's hedonism: Dorian enjoyed "keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life",