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 made excisions of some of the most controversial material when revising and lengthening the story for book publication the following year. The longer and revised version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" published in book form in 1891 featured an aphoristic preface—a defence of the artist's rights and of art for art's sake—based in part on his press defences of the novel the previous year. The content, style, and presentation of the preface made it famous in its own right, as a literary and artistic manifesto. In April 1891, the publishing firm of Ward, Lock and Company, who had distributed