A Rebours: J.-K. Huysmans

Portrait of JK Huysmans by Lucien Descaves.

“Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful.”
The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The yellow book, a gift from Lord Henry, in which “things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually revealed.” Yellow was the colour of the fin de siécle and a synonym for the bizarre, artificial and modern; the yellow book, which indeed is said to poison Dorian Gray, is only one of many books with a yellow cover that belong to the French school of symbolysts and, last but not least, “The yellow book” was also the title of the most famous magazine for art and literature of that time.” (link)

The yellow book that Lord Henry gives to Dorian is A Rebours by J.K. Huysmans.

Gray later purchases multiple copies of this terrible volume and has them bound in various materials of different shades and hues so a copy will always be at hand which cosmetically corresponds to his current emotional/physical situation.