Picture of Dorian Gray

The most beautiful young man in London makes a devil's bargain: let my face stay forever young while the painting ages in my place. What follows is one of literature's most devastating portraits of vanity and moral decay. Dorian Gray remains impossibly beautiful while his portrait becomes a grotesque record of his sins. Under the influence of the corrupt Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian descends into hedonism and cruelty, discovering that his youth grants him license to do whatever he pleases. Wilde's prose crackles with wit and poison, making this Gothic fable as intoxicating as it is horrifying. A century later, it remains a razor-sharp meditation on the price of beauty and the danger of living without a conscience.