The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, is part of the Barnes& Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions ataffordable prices to the student and the general reader, including newscholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras.Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholarsBiographies of the authorsChronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural eventsFootnotes and endnotesSelective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays,paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the workComments by other famous authorsStudy questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectationsBibliographies for further readingIndices & Glossaries, when appropriateAlleditions are beautifully designed and are printed to superiorspecifications; some include illustrations of historical interest.Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation ofinfluences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich eachreader's understanding of these enduring works.Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparkling prose toThe Picture of Dorian Gray,his dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youthand beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged—petulant,hedonistic, vain, and amoral—while a painting of him ages and growsincreasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying, enchanting,obsessing, even corrupting readers for more than a hundred years.Taking the reader in and out of London drawing rooms, to the heights of aestheticism, and to the depths of decadence,The Picture of Dorian Grayis not only a melodrama about moral corruption. Laced with bon mots andvivid depictions of upper-class refinement, it is also a fascinatinglook at the milieu of Wilde’s fin-de-siècle world and a manifesto of thecreed “Art for Art’s Sake.”The ever-quotable Wilde, who oncedelighted London with his scintillating plays, scandalized readers withthis, his only novel. Upon publication, Dorian was condemned asdangerous, poisonous, stupid, vulgar, and immoral, and Wilde as a“driveling pedant.” The novel, in fact, was used against Wilde at hismuch-publicized trials for “gross indecency,” which led to hisimprisonment and exile on the European continent. Even so,The Picture of Dorian Grayfirmly established Wilde as one of the great voices of the Aestheticmovement, and endures as a classic that is as timeless as its hero.