The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincotts Monthly Magazine. Fearing the story was indecent the magazines editor deleted roughly five hundred words before publication without Wildes knowledge. Despite that censorship The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding public morality. In response Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press although he personally made excisions of some of the most controversial material when revising and lengthening the story for book publication the following year.The longer and revised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray published in book form in 1891 featured an aphoristic preface--a defence of the artists rights and of art for arts sake--based in part on his press defences of the novel the previous year. The content style and presentation of the preface made it famous in its own right as a literary and artistic manifesto. In April 1891 the publishing firm of Ward Lock and Company who had distributed the shorter more inflammatory magazine version in England the previous year published the revised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Source: Wikipedia