The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Volume 3: The Picture of Dorian Gray: The 1890 and 1891 Texts

This is the first variorum edition of the 1890 and 1891 editions of Oscar Wilde's controversial novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Drawing on manuscripts and a typescript, this volume reprints the thirteen-chapter and twenty-chapter versions of Wilde's narrative as separate works, enabling the reader to see the considerable changes that Wilde made to his famous story across a period of eighteen months. This variorum edition contains a comprehensive introduction that provides full bibliographical information about the two editions, as well as a detailed commentary that illuminates the extraordinarily wide range of references that Wilde makes to a broad repertoire of sources. This volume will be the definitive edition of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" for many years to come.

Joseph Bristow is a Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.