Vivian Grey the assumption that Vivian Grey is synonymous with the young Benjamin Disraeli. The British poet Mary Montgomerie Lamb took her pen name 'Violet Fane' from a character in this novel. Some commentaters have suggested that "Vivian Grey" influenced Oscar Wilde in the writing of his only novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Vivian Grey Vivian Grey is Benjamin Disraeli's first novel, published by Henry Colburn in 1826. Originally published anonymously, ostensibly by a so-called "man of fashion," part 1 caused a considerable sensation in London society. Contemporary reviewers, suspicious of the numerous solecisms contained within the text, eventually identified the
The Picture of Dorian Gray by attending a high-society party only twenty-four hours after committing a murder. Moral duplicity and self-indulgence are evident in Dorian's patronage of London's opium dens. Wilde conflates the images of the upper-class man and lower-class man in Dorian Gray, a gentleman slumming for strong entertainment in the poor parts of London town. Lord Henry philosophically had earlier said to him that: "Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. ... I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations"—implying that Dorian is two men, a refined aesthete and a coarse