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 Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.

Fearing the story was indecent, the magazine's editor deleted roughly five hundred words before publication without Wilde's 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.
(from wikipedia.org)

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright.

After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s.

He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray", and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for homosexuality, imprisonment, and early death at age 46.
(from wikipedia.org)