Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparking prose to The Picture of Dorian Gray, his dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged- petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral- while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying, enchanting, obsessing, even corrupting readers for more than a hundred years. Taking the reader in and out of London drawing rooms, to the heights of aestheticism, and to the depths of decadence, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fascinating look at the milieu of Wilde's fin-siecle world and a manifesto of the creed "Art for Art's Sake. "