The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde 1854–1900
The book, and the century it came out of.
A portrait keeps the marks of a life its subject refuses to carry: the sins, the years, the cruelty. Wilde’s only novel was cut by his publisher, attacked as immoral, and read aloud in court at his trial, where the prosecution treated the fiction as a confession. Beneath the epigrams it is a severe book about what a beautiful surface costs. Illustrated with 56 full-page plates — paintings by Kern, Spitzweg and Huskisson among them.
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Gothic & Horror
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 232 pages
- Reading time
- about 5 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785486556388
56 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
1890 — and used against its author five years later
The magazine version was attacked as immoral on publication; Wilde cut and softened it for the book edition and added the preface about art having no moral purpose, which is a defence disguised as an aesthetic manifesto.
In 1895 the novel was read aloud in court during his trial, passage by passage, as evidence of his character. He was sentenced to two years’ hard labour and died three years after his release.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Gothic & Horror shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486556388, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of The Picture of Dorian Gray?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Oscar Wilde's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 232 pages, which is roughly about 5 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
