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) he shuns her and she mocks him. When he leaves, she calls out the nickname 'Romeo'. Upon hearing that, a sailor follows Dorian outside. "Scene 4" Outside the tavern, the sailor identifies himself as James Vane, pulls out a gun, and vows to kill Dorian for causing her death. Dorian pretends that he did not know Sibyl and asks how long ago she died. After James answers 18 years, Dorian tells him to look at him under a street light. On so doing, James retrenches, as such a young man could not possibly have known his sister at the time,