In 1882, Oscar Wilde met Frances Richards in Ottawa, where he visited her studios. In 1887, Richards moved to London where she renewed her acquaintance with Wilde and painted his portrait. Wilde described that incident as being the inspiration for the novel:
In December, 1887, I gave a sitting to a Canadian artist who was staying with some friends of hers and mine in South Kensington. When the sitting was over, and I had looked at the portrait, I said in jest, 'What a tragic thing it is. This portrait will never grow older and I shall. If it was only the other way!' The moment I had said this it occurred to me what a capital plot the idea would make for a story. The result is 'Dorian Gray.'[4]
In 1889, J. M. Stoddart, an editor for Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, was in London to solicit novellas to publish in the magazine. On 30 August 1889, Stoddart dined with Oscar Wilde, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and T. P. Gill[5] at the Langham Hotel, and commissioned novellas from each writer.[6] Doyle promptly submitted The Sign of the Four, which was published in the February 1890 edition of Lippincott's. Stoddart received Wilde's manuscript for The Picture of Dorian Gray on 7 April 1890, seven months after having commissioned the novel from him.[6]
In July 1889, Wilde published "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.", a very different story but one that has a similar title to The Picture of Dorian Gray and has been described as "a preliminary sketch of some of its major themes", including homosexuality.[7][8]
