First edition. Original quarter parchment over grey paper covered boards with gilt titles and vignette to spine and upper cover. A near fine copy, with some toning to the spine and a small patch of wear at the base of the spine, but otherwise crisp with clean boards and bright gilt. Bookplate to the front pastedown with a residue mark beneath, but the hinges perfect and internally very clean. A superb copy of an extremely fragile production.

Wilde's only novel, and longest work of prose, was written as a result of a commission in 1889 from J. M Stoddart, the managing editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, and first published in his magazine in 1890. Critical reaction was generally unfavourable, with comments of depravity, corruption and that the book was suitable only for "perverted telegraph boys".
Wilde made various alterations to the first edition and added a preface attempting through a series of epigrams to justify the book's literary merit.
Running through the book are the themes of the gothic novel, perhaps owing something to Wilde's great uncle Charles Maturin and his gothic masterpiece, Melmoth, in its psychological manipulation of the subjects. Underlying the plot is the theme of duality encapsulated by Dorian's unchanging public face and deterioration of his hidden portrait, but also the relationship between ethics and aesthetics and how the pursuit of pleasure leads increasingly to desensitisation to evil.
"The Picture of Dorian Gray is a vindication of the power of literature... a unique form of fiction that fuses gothic, decadent, and melodramatic modes of writing to produce a haunting story that has entered the mythic imagination of subsequent generations." (Anne Markey).
Even by the standards of Wilde's book, the physical composition of the first edition Dorian Gray is notably unable to withstand much handling. Nice copies of this book are rather rare.

Stock ID: 37530