Lord Henry Wotton is a cynical man who lives for the entertainments that life and love may bring him.
When he pays his friend, the painter Basil Hallward, a visit he notices a portrait of a stunningly handsome, young man with an innocent and pure facial expression.
He is told that this young man is Doran Gray and that he cannot meet him as he might try to corrupt him.
However, Dorian Gray himself arrives and he is very impressed with the cynical wisdom of Lord Henry Wotton.
The portrait is finished, but Dorian Gray is saddened by the thought that the beautiful lad in the picture will stay young forever whereas he, the model, will grow old and ugly all too soon.
He says that he would not mind exchanging his soul for perpetual youth and beauty.
Over the next months the innocence of Dorian Gray is assailed by the cynicism of Lord Wotton.
They are always together, but then the young man falls in love with the innocent, seventeen years old actress Sibyl Vane.
However, when she gives a bad performance she is ridiculed by first and foremost Lord Wotton and Dorian feels embarrassed by his love for her.
He leaves her in a brutal manner and when he returns home he has a shock as the portrait now looks differently.
The innocence is gone from the expression of the handsome painted face.
The next day he learns that Sibyl has committed suicide, but Lord Wotton who brings him this news also gives him a book about all kinds of sensuous pleasures which leads him to new debauchery.
From now on he does not deny himself any pleasures, and his greatest interest is to watch how his portrait turns into the picture of a monster while he himself keeps his looks.
When the painter rebukes him over his very bad reputation he kills him and gets an old acquaintance to dissolve his body in chemicals.
Soon after this Dorian is being stalked by the brother of Sibyl Vane, but he is accidentally killed at a hunting party.
By now he wants to change his ways and tells Lord Wotton that he will stop his selfish life.
For instance he will not seduce a peasant girl whom he knows would be an easy prey for him.
When he checks out the portrait to see whether this noble decision is to be seen he is shocked that the portrait looks even worse.
This is because he was not sincere in his wishes to change.
In a rage he starts to slash the portrait, but the knife ends up in his own breast.
When found his face exhibits all his sins, but now the portrait has regained its wonderful innocence and beauty.
"The Portrait for Dorian Gray" is the only full-length novel by Oscar Wilde.
Some have called it a "rework of the Faust legend".
In a way that is true as both these stories are about a man who wants perpetual youth.
However, Faust both wants sensuous pleasures and the opportunity to study and work for humanity forever whereas Dorian only dreams of indulging himself in sex and admiration.
Besides, "Faust" (1808; 1832) by Goethe is a masterpiece which Wilde's novel is not.
While one is entertained it is not great literary art.
The plot, the characters and the morals are handled in a very heavy-handed manner as everything is one-dimensional.
It is not said explicitly, but one may assume that much of the so-called "sin" of several of the characters and also Dorian himself is homosexuality.
Oscar Wilde may have seen himself in the cynical, but witty Lord Wotton.
Perhaps Dorian himself is a portrait of his young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, who cost him everything when he took his father to court over slander about him and Lord Alfred.
"Slander" which actually spoke the truth.