Wilde`s only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between art, life, and concequence. From its provocative Preface, challenging the reader to believe in `art for art`s sake`, to its sensational conclusion, the story self-consciously experiments with the notion of sin as an element of design . Yet Wilde himself underestimated the consequences of his experiment, and its capacity to outrage the Victorian establishment . Its words returned to haunt him in his court appearances in 1895, and he later recalled the `note of doom` which runs like `a purple thread` through its carefully crafted prose.