The Picture of Dorian Gray

With an essay by Peter Ackroyd.

`I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me ... Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day – mock me horribly!`

A story of evil, debauchery and scandal, Oscar Wilde`s only novel tells of Dorian Gray, a beautiful yet corrupt man. When he wishes that a perfect portrait of himself would bear the signs of ageing in his place, the picture becomes his hideous secret, as it follows Dorian`s own downward spiral into cruelty and depravity. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a masterpiece of the evil in men`s hearts, and is as controversial and alluring as Wilde himself.

The Penguin English Library – 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.