Contemporary response
Even after the removal of controversial text, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, to the extent, in some cases, of saying that Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding public morality.
In the 30 June 1890 issue of the Daily Chronicle, the book critic said that Wilde's novel contains "one element ... which will taint every young mind that comes in contact with it." In the 5 July 1890 issue of the Scots Observer, a reviewer asked "Why must Oscar Wilde 'go grubbing in muck-heaps?'" The book critic of The Irish Times said, The Picture of Dorian Gray was "first published to some scandal."[40] Such book reviews achieved for the novel a "certain notoriety for being 'mawkish and nauseous', 'unclean', 'effeminate' and 'contaminating'."[41] Such moralistic scandal arose from the novel's homoeroticism, which offended the sensibilities (social, literary, and aesthetic) of Victorian book critics. Most of the criticism was, however, personal, attacking Wilde for being a hedonist with values that deviated from the conventionally accepted morality of Victorian Britain.
In response to such criticism, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and the sanctity of art in his correspondence with the British press. Wilde also obscured the homoeroticism of the story and expanded the personal background of the characters in the 1891 book edition.[42]
Due to controversy, retailing chain W H Smith, then Britain's largest bookseller,[43] withdrew every copy of the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine from its bookstalls in railway stations.[5]
At Wilde's 1895 trials, the book was called a "perverted novel" and passages (from the magazine version) were read during cross-examination.[44] The book's association with Wilde's trials further hurt the book's reputation. In the decade after Wilde's death in 1900, the authorized edition of the novel was published by Charles Carrington, who specialized in literary erotica.
Modern response
The novel was considered a poorly written novel and unworthy of critical attention until about the 1980s. Richard Ellmann wrote that "parts of the novel are wooden, padded, self-indulgent"; Édouard Roditi held a similarly negative opinion about the novel. Afterwards, critics began to view is it as a masterpiece of Wilde's oeuvre. [45] Joyce Carol Oates wrote of the book "it is exceptionally good-in fact, one of the strongest and most haunting of English novels", while noting that the reputation of the novel was still questionable.[46]
In a 2009 review, critic Robin McKie considers the novel to be technically mediocre, saying that the conceit of the plot guaranteed its fame, but the device is never pushed to its full.[47] On the other hand, in March 2014, Robert McCrum of The Guardian listed it among the 100 best novels ever written in English, calling it "an arresting, and slightly camp, exercise in late-Victorian gothic".[48]
