Picture of Dorian Gray (The Penny Dreadful Collection)

Oscar Wilde's only novel was first published in 1890 in the July edition of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, and examined the interrelationships between art, life, and consequence, challenging Victorian conventions and shocking many readers. Many reviewers criticized its decadence, the call to believe in 'art for art's sake', and its moral ambiguity. Yet still today it has power to enthrall, the very nature of sin explored through the tale of a young man who sells his soul for a lifetime of beauty, his debauchery manifest only on his portrait, every transgression a blemish or sign of aging. In Wilde's tale of vanity and self-destruction, Dorian Gray is a toxic force of nature, the novel building to a sensational conclusion that has inspired a century of writers and filmmakers.