by Oscar Wilde (Author), Cyrus Rua (Illustrator)
An innocent's wish, once granted, gives rise to one of literature's most memorable villains in Oscar Wilde's tale of prodigal aestheticism, "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Under the tutelage of Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian is lead into a double life - a surface of eternal youth in prim Victorian society barely concealing an existence of decadence, vice and moral decay. The chilling narrative and Wilde's faerie tale collection, "The Happy Prince" are richly illustrated by Cyrus Rua ("The Grimmest of Grimm.") As an added bonus, this volume also features the original Lippincott's Monthly edition of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" as it first appeared in 1890. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is the tale of a life ungoverned by will or intention as a single man witnesses, through a chilling portrait, the destruction of his own soul.