England regarded this sparkling Irishman with a combination of fascination, admiration, and horror, but no one could deny he was becoming a titan of the national culture. He had successfully published works of prose and collections of poetry, and was preparing his first novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, for publication, a masterful account of a Faustian bargain dripping with desire, vanity, and corruption. For a decade he had been the talk of London, a literary wit who pioneered the fashion and philosophy of aestheticism. In 1891, Oscar Wilde’s star was on the rise.
