Unfortunately the letter bears no indication of the house to which it was sent. However, on the 1st of July in the following year _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ was published in book form by Messrs. Ward, Lock and Co. In this form it contained seven new chapters. The binding was of a rough grey paper, the colour of cigarette ash, with back of parchment vellum. The gilt lettering and design was by Charles Ricketts. A sumptuous _édition de luxe_, limited to two hundred and fifty copies, signed by the author, was also issued, the covers being similar to the ordinary edition but the gilt tooling more elaborate. In March, 1891, Wilde had written "A Preface to 'Dorian Gray'" in the _Fortnightly Review_, in which he enunciated his creed as an artist. This preface is included in all impressions of _Dorian Gray_ which contain twenty chapters. Wilde was indeed a true prophet when he foretold that his story would create a sensation. Though it occupied but a hundred pages in a monthly periodical, it was reviewed as fully as any _chef d'oeuvre_ of a leading novelist. In one of his letters Wilde says that out of over two hundred press cuttings which he received in reference to _Dorian Gray_ he took public notice of only three. But it is impossible to doubt but that he was thinking of his critics when he gave vent to his views on journalists, and the attitude of the British public towards art, in his essay on _The Soul of Man_ a few months later. "A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament," he writes. "Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is.... The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist." He considers it to be an impertinence for the public (represented by the journalist) who knows nothing about art to criticise the artist and his work. In this country, he declares that the arts that have escaped best from the "aggressive, offensive and brutalising" attempts on the part of the public to interfere with the individual as an artist, are the arts in which the public takes no interest. He gives poetry as an instance, and declares that we have been able to have fine poetry because the public does not read it, and consequently does not influence it. But,