From PUDNEY 122: Wilde himself, in letters to his critics, described his own book as "poisonous" - precisely the same adjective used to describe the little yellow book in the novel. In likening Dorian Gray to the little yellow book while defending it from accusations of immorality, Wilde was perhaps enjoying a private joke at the expense of his critics.

From PUDNEY 122: Lord Henry's view, which sounds very much in line with Wilde's own ideas as developed in The Soul of Man Under Socialism, implies that influence over another is necessarily "immoral." This, by implication, flatly contradicts the claim made in the Preface that there can be no such thing as a moral or immoral book, and it does this very clearly and unambiguously by depicting a book that is immoral "from the scientific point of view."

From PUDNEY 120: The use of the word "tragedy" - which of course can denote a theatrical genre as well as an event in real life - hints at something interesting: the idea that life can itself become a form of art. Lord Henry suggests that a person can be both actor and audience; this is certainly the case with Dorian himself. Dorian is a devotee of the arts in all their forms (audience). But it is also suggested that he is himself an artist (actor), a man for whom "Life itself was the first, the greatest, of the arts." Dorian Gray's status as both artist and artwork, is both exemplified and confused by his relationship with his portrait. The beautiful, "real" Dorian does not reflect the sinful reality of his existence - instead, the painting does. The novel also effects an almost farcical reversal of the Preface's dictum about art concealing the artist, as Dorian, the artist, quite literally conceals art, by locking it up in his attic. Perhaps significantly, the painting's other creator, Basil Hallward, also intended to hide it from public view. This is not the only point at which the novel appears consciously and subtly to mock the opinions expressed in the Preface.