In some ways prefiguring the dramas in its creator's life, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fictional model of the moral contradictions pervading late Victorian society.

Oscar Wilde's Faustian tale of a beautiful young man trading his soul for the promise of eternal youth sparked controversy upon its appearance in 1890, a decade in which Wilde experienced the heights and depths of notoriety as society's wit and dandy, as its chief spokesman for the aesthetic "art for art's sake" movement, and ultimately as its embittered and destitute outcast.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray: "What the World Thinks Me," Michael Patrick Gillespie contributes a penetrating analysis to Wildean studies, a volume at once accessible to students and valuable to scholars. Taking up "The Extratextual Milieu," Gillespie delineates the historical and literary contexts in which Dorian Gray appeared and traces the critical reception to it; offering close "Readings and Rereadings," he examines elements of imagination, ethics, aesthetics, and sensuality in the work.

He further demonstrates that the narrative's appeal to a multitude of viewpoints allows for broad interpretations of the novel, prompting critics to see in it a range of authorial concerns and visions. Written with care, thoroughness, and grace, The Picture of Dorian Gray: "What the World Thinks Me" will be welcomed by students, librarians, and scholars. Enhancing the study's usefulness are a chronology of Wilde's life and works, a bibliography, and notes and references.