The Picture of Dorian Gray

Basil Hallward paints a full-length portrait of Dorian Gray, a young man whose beauty has strongly affected Basil's art. At Basil's studio Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, who argues that youth and beauty are brief and urges him to pursue experience while he still possesses them. When Basil finishes the portrait, Dorian becomes distressed by the thought that the painted image will remain young while he ages. He wishes that the positions could be reversed and says he would give his soul for the exchange. Dorian increasingly seeks Lord Henry's company and later falls in love with the actress Sibyl Vane, but rejects her when her acting deteriorates. Returning home, he sees an apparent new cruelty in the portrait's mouth. The next day he confirms that the painting has physically changed. Before he can reconcile with Sibyl, Lord Henry reports that she has died by poison. Dorian gradually accepts Lord Henry's treatment of her death as an artistic tragedy and chooses to keep the portrait's connection rather than seek an end to it.

Dorian hides the portrait in a locked former schoolroom and becomes absorbed in a yellow-covered book sent by Lord Henry. Over the following years his own face remains youthful while the portrait grows older and increasingly corrupt. He pursues a philosophy of experience, moves through varied sensory and intellectual interests, and becomes the subject of damaging rumors that many people discount because of his appearance, wealth, and social manner. Basil eventually confronts Dorian about those reports. When Basil says he would need to see Dorian's soul to know the truth, Dorian shows him the altered portrait. Basil is horrified and urges him to pray. Dorian then develops a sudden hatred of Basil and kills him with a knife. He coerces his former friend Alan Campbell, using undisclosed compromising information, into removing every trace of Basil's body.

Trying to forget the murder, Dorian goes to an opium den, where Sibyl's brother James Vane hears a woman call him Prince Charming. James, who has sought the man he blames for Sibyl's death, ambushes Dorian but releases him after Dorian's unchanged face makes him seem too young to be the same man. The woman then tells James that Dorian has looked nearly unchanged for about eighteen years. A week later James appears outside the conservatory at Dorian's Selby Royal estate. During a shooting party several days afterward, Sir Geoffrey Clouston accidentally kills an unknown man in a thicket. Dorian discovers that the dead man is James and believes himself safe from pursuit.

Six weeks after Basil's disappearance, Dorian tells Lord Henry that he intends to become good. As evidence, he describes abandoning a planned elopement with a village girl named Hetty rather than taking her away with him. Lord Henry questions whether the act helped her. Dorian also tests Lord Henry's reaction by asking what he would say if Dorian claimed to have murdered Basil, but Lord Henry dismisses the possibility. Dorian insists that the soul is real, says that the yellow book poisoned him, and continues to claim that he will change.

At home Dorian goes to the portrait expecting that his treatment of Hetty may have improved it. Instead he finds new signs of cunning and hypocrisy and spreading blood-like stains. He considers whether vanity, curiosity, and hypocrisy motivated his supposed good deed. He also considers confessing Basil's murder and recognizes public confession as a duty, but rejects it. Deciding that the portrait is the last evidence against him and has acted as his conscience, he takes the knife used to kill Basil and stabs the canvas. A terrible cry and crash wake the servants. When they enter the locked room, they find Basil's portrait restored to the youthful appearance they know as Dorian's. On the floor is a withered, wrinkled corpse with the knife in its heart. They identify the dead man as Dorian only by his rings.