The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde - an outstanding English writer, who during his lifetime was called the apostle of aestheticism. He loved and exalted beauty - in art, in pleasures, and in youth. He, like no one else, could embody beauty in artistic... words, which made his works a unique phenomenon in literature. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" - Wilde's most famous work - immediately gained scandalous fame upon its release (1890), evoked controversial assessments from contemporaries, and soon became a literary manifesto of European aestheticism.
...Dorian Gray's perfect beauty drives everyone around him crazy: artist Basil Hallward painted his portrait, and women throw themselves at his neck. How can one resist the influence of Sir Henry Wott? This cynic and aesthete becomes Dorian's "demon" and helps him overcome his pangs of conscience, after which Dorian ceases to distinguish between good and evil. He abandons his beloved girl and drives her to death, and thereafter his life is a series of endless wickedness and crimes. Only the portrait reminds him that no transgression of his will go unpunished. The face of the living Dorian remains beautiful - he is doomed to eternal youth. But the face in the portrait becomes increasingly disfigured with each new crime.