"The Picture of Dorian Gray" is the most famous work of Oscar Wilde, his only novel that in its time provoked a flurry of negative reviews and nevertheless had incredible success. The main character of the novel, the handsome Dorian, is a dual, ambiguous figure. A delicate aesthete and romantic becomes a ruthless criminal, and the attempt to preserve his extraordinary beauty and youth ends in failure. Wilde's stories and fairy tales — among which are the famous "The Canterville Ghost," "The Happy Prince," "The Star-Child," and "The Nightingale and the Rose" — combine romance and satire of society, they are ironic and somewhat sad, full of elegance and wit. And his fairy tales, written for adults "who have not lost the gift of joy and wonder," are touching stories about love, kindness, and self-sacrifice.
