Many scholars believe John Gray, an English poet and part of Irish writer Oscar Wilde’s social circle, was the model for Dorian Gray in Wilde’s 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Gray was noted for his beauty and had a relationship with Wilde, similar to the novel’s themes. Wilde’s lover Lord Alfred Douglas also resembled Dorian in many ways, but Wilde’s relationship with him did not begin until after the novel was published.
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