The Picture of Dorian Gray August 1889, Stoddart dined with Oscar Wilde, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and T. P. Gill at the Langham Hotel, and commissioned novellas from each writer. Conan Doyle promptly submitted "The Sign of the Four" (1890) to Stoddart, but Wilde was more dilatory; Conan Doyle's second Sherlock Holmes novel was published in the February 1890 edition of "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine", yet Stoddart did not receive Wilde's manuscript for "The Picture of Dorian Gray" until 7 April 1890, nine months after having commissioned the novel from him. The literary merits of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" impressed Stoddart, but, as an editor,
Dorian Gray (character) of the published versions. The summary below deals with the longest version, the 1891 novel. However, certain episodes describe in particular Dorian's encounter with (and subsequent murder of) James Vane. This does not appear in the version originally submitted by Wilde for publishing. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" begins on a summer day in Victorian England, where Lord Henry Wotton, an opinionated man, is observing the sensitive artist Basil Hallward painting a portrait of Dorian Gray, a handsome young man, who is Basil's ultimate muse. While posing for the painting, Dorian listens to Lord Henry espousing his hedonistic worldview and