Ganz Europa reagiert bestürzt, als der berühmte Altertumskundler Johann Joachim Winckelmann 1768 auf der Rückreise nach Rom ermordet wird. Werner Bergengruen hat den historischen Kriminalfall zum Gegenstand einer Novelle gewählt. Geschildert werden die letzten Tage im Leben des Gelehrten; daß der Ausgang feststeht, tut der Spannung dabei keinen Abbruch.

Autorentext
Werner Bergengruen, geb. am 16. September 1892 in Riga, war nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg Journalist und begann ab 1923 zu veröffentlichen. 1936 trat er zum Katholizismus über, 1937 wurde er aus der Reichsschrifttumskammer ausgeschlossen und lebte danach zurückgezogen in Bayern und Tirol, später in der Schweiz. Er starb am 4. September 1964 in Baden-Baden.

Klappentext

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde's only novel, was first published on both sides of the Atlantic by the American periodical Lippincott's Monthly Review on 20th June 1890. Not only did this text provoke a heated debate in the British press in the same year, it also became notorious for its being quoted and examined in court in Wilde's three trials in the spring of 1895.
As a story, the novel shows how a young man in a Faustian situation wishes for his portrait to age rather than himself. Steeped in sin, which, however, is alluded to rather than spelt out, Dorian Gray for Wilde's critics and enemies became an image of the author's own behaviour.
Going back to the typescript of the novel, the editor has restored passages to the text that had been excised or censored by Wilde himself and the editorial committee in America. Danny Morrison has provided a preface placing Wilde in the Irish political context of his own day and beyond.