THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY BY OSCAR WILDE [1910] FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION

[WILDE, OSCAR]. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Paris: Charles Carrington, 1908 [i.e. 1910].

FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION. Leather-bound; hardcover; quarto (265 x 195 x 30 mm); pp. 312. English text. Handsomely bound in publisher's original half Japanese vellum; gilt lettering to spine; grey paper-covered boards; top edge gilt; red-lettered publisher's note on the illustrations tipped-in at the half-title; title-page printed in red and black; illustrated with seven full-page wood engravings by Eugene Dété from drawings by Paul Thiriat of Paris, each with a captioned tissue guard. Condition: VERY GOOD. Binding tight and secure, the hinges and joints intact. Light marking to covers, the upper board with a gilt lily label neatly laid down. Interior well-preserve with some light spotting confined to the front endpapers. Without previous ownership markings.

Notes: An excellent copy of the scarce first illustrated edition. Although this edition is dated 1908, the book was actually issued in 1910, due to the artist's health delaying release. The Picture of Dorian Gray proved to be Oscar Wilde's most popular book, first appearing in Lippincott's magazine in 1890. The story, as published in book-form, contains six new chapters, with many alterations and additional matter. After the famous trial Carrington, although inundated with orders for copies, withdrew the book from circulation. This dark high-society late-Victorian novel was a coded and epigrammatic melodrama inspired by the author's own tortured sexuality. [Mason 335, p.349].