"If it were I who were to be always young and the picture to grow old...I would give my soul for that," says the radiantly handsome Dorian Gray. So runs the premise of Wilde's famous (er...infamous), unsettling novella that scandalized Victorian England. This book was used against Wilde at his trials for "gross indecency," ultimately leading to his imprisonment and exile. However, the messages relayed in the book are as timeless as Dorian's looks, begging the question: Did Oscar Wilde himself make a deal with the devil to pen such a perfectly rich classic?

The prose was exquisite and I couldn't think of a better book to be curled up with on a cold, bleak, October day.