SOURCE: Christensen, Peter G. “Three Concealments: Jean Cocteau's Adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Romance Notes 27, no. 1 (autumn 1986): 27-35.

In the following essay, Christensen questions Cocteau's possible reasons for not attempting to have his adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray performed, as well as his omission of seemingly key elements of Wilde's novel and his technique of never showing the famous portrait to his audience.

In the twenty-two years since Jean Cocteau's death, interest in his work has risen and then waned. The peak period was 1968-1971, which saw the appearance of three biographies—those of Elizabeth Sprigge and Jean-Jacques Kihm, Frederick Brown, and Francis Steegmuller. Since then much previously unavailable work, both private and public, has been published, but not analyzed in detail. In the private realm, we have the first volume of the journal, Le Passé défini, as well as the...