The Picture of Dorian Gray, written in 1891, is a novel written by Oscar Wilde and it is also his only novel. This book is about a painter named Basil Hallward who painted a portrait on a handsome young man named Dorian Gray. During the last painting session, Dorian meets Basil’s friend Lord Henry Wotton who told him that he should experience his life to the fullest. After Basil finished drawing the portrait, Dorian wished that only the painting would grow old which he enjoys eternal youth. Due to Lord Henry's influence, Dorian went looking for passion and fell in love with a young actress named Sibyl Vane. When Sibyl fell in love with Dorian, her performance level dropped and when she performed in front of Basil and Lord Henry, she did not really do very well. This made Dorian very disappointed, and he loses all respect and love which he used to have for her, and broke the engagement they had. He went home and found out that the painting has become slightly more cruel-looking. The next morning, Dorian decided to go back and marry Sibyl regardless, but found out that she has already killed herself.
Over the next years, Dorian finds joy in committing sinful or pleasurable deeds and watching the painting change while he loses nothing (he loses neither his beauty nor his youth).
When Dorian is thirty-eight, he met Basil again. Having not seen him for a long time, Dorian shows Basil what has happened to the portrait. Basil was horrified. He tried to make Dorian repent but was killed by him. Dorian than got his old friend to burn Basil’s body to get rid of evidence.
Dorian started to be afraid of all his dirty deeds being discovered and goes to an opium den, hoping that his bad feelings would go away. James, Sibyl's brother, who has been searching for Dorian for eighteen years, knowing only that his sister called him Prince Charming, finds Dorian and threatened to kill him. He lets him go when Dorian told him that he could not been more than twenty years old judging from his looks. A few days later, James was accidentally shot and killed and this was when Dorian decides to repent and to him, he has to destroy the ugly portrait to do this. He stabbed it with the knife he used to kill Basil and ended up killing himself.