The Picture of Dorian Gray biography, "Oscar Wilde" (1989), the literary critic Richard Ellmann said that: Wilde does not name the book, but at his trial he conceded that it was, or almost [was], Huysmans's "À rebours" ... to a correspondent, he wrote that he had played a 'fantastic variation' upon "À rebours", and someday must write it down. The references in "Dorian Gray" to specific chapters are deliberately inaccurate. Some commentators have suggested that "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was influenced by the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's (anonymously published) first novel "Vivian Grey" (1826) as, "a kind of homage from one outsider to
The Picture of Dorian Gray (opera) says the dead man is a stranger, apparently a sailor. Demanding to see the body, Dorian is relieved to discover that the dead man is James Vane, although he says he has never seen the man before. "Scene 6" Several weeks later, in Dorian's sitting room, Dorian tells Lord Henry, who is also aged, that he has vowed to reform and offers as proof a story of his having spared a young country girl from sexual exploitation. Lord Henry scoffs and says that Dorian has only made himself feel good whilst possibly breaking the girl's heart. Dorian replies that he