The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray was a best-selling novel written by Oscar Wilde. The author first had the idea for the book while staying at the Langham Hotel in 1886 (COMIC: Dead Man's Hand) and it was published sometime thereafter, to wide popularity and praise. (AUDIO: Beautiful Things)

While its central character, a man who never aged due to a supernatural portrait in his attic that aged in his stead, was widely considered to be a fictional creation of Wilde, there was a man who claimed to be the real Dorian Gray, and who was indeed immortal. (AUDIO: Shades of Gray) He was an acquaintance of Sherlock Holmes, another person who was often thought to be fictional, and met the famous detective on more than one occasion, including once in 1927. (AUDIO: The Feast of Magog) Centuries later, he met Bernice Summerfield. (AUDIO: Shades of Gray)

Sgt Quick had read the novel when he met Wilde but Henry Gordon Jago had not. (AUDIO: Beautiful Things)

When Zoe Heriot was eight years old, she read Wilde's complete works, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, in a day. The name of Achromatics was based on the character of Dorian Gray as "achromatic" meant grey. (AUDIO: Echoes of Grey)

In 2013, Charlie Gibbs alluded to the novel when he said that Turlough must have had a "portrait in the attic" as he had not aged since 1983. In spite of this, Turlough believed that Gibbs had never read a book in his life. Nyssa did not understand the reference, but discerned it to be a literary one. (AUDIO: Eldrad Must Die!)

Epsilon Delta had a copy of the novel in his study at the University of Oxford. (PROSE: The Dimension Riders)