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.