Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest, a trivial comedy for serious people is a play by Oscar Wilde. It still holds ground among his readers for its biting humour and satirical comedy. Set in Victorian England, the play revolves around Mr. John Worthing who creates a fictional brother by the name of Ernest as an escape from the countryside and visits his lady love Gwendolen Fairfax in the town. His best friend, Algernon Moncrieff finds out about his secret and impersonates Ernest Worthing in order to impress John's ward, Cecily Cardew. When both of them end up together with their lovers, there occurs a comical display of chaos, confusion and disorder that ultimately leads to the discovery of an extraordinary truth. A timeless comedy with its ridiculous description of marriage and society, the play is set to make you laugh your head off.

This volume contains everything Wilde wrote in dramatic form Wilde's masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest is printed here in its usual three-act form, but with an appendix containing the best material from the original four-act version. Also included are his three 'problem plays', Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband, as well as his once-banned Salome and several other little-known but fascinating dramas. H. Montgomery Hyde, an acknowledged expert on Wilde and author of several books on him, provides an introduction to Wilde's life and work with special attention to the composition and performance of the plays." Wilde is to me our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audiences, with the whole theatre" (George Bernard Shaw)

Here in one volume are his immensely popular novel, The Picture Of Dorian Gray ; his last literary work, the Ballad Of Reading Goal, a product of his own prison experience; and four complete plays:Lady Windermere's Fan, his first dramatic success; An Ideal Husband, which continued to poke fun at conventional morality; The Importance Of Being Earnest, his finest comedy; and Salome, a portrait of uncontrollable love originally written in French, now in a new translation by Richard Elman. Every selection appears in its entirely--a marvelous collection of outstanding works by the incomparable Oscar Wilde, whom Max Beerbohm so aptly labeled "a lord of language."

When the Selfish Giant builds a high wall round his lovely garden to keep the children out, the North Wind blows, the Frost comes and the Snow dances through the trees. The Giant wonders why Spring never comes to his cold, white garden. Then one day the Giant looks out to see a most wonderful sight.

The Importance of Being Earnest A Trivial Comedy for Serious People Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Contemporary reviews all praised the play's humour, though some were cautious about its explicit lack of social messages, while others foresaw the modern consensus that it was the culmination of Wilde's artistic career so far. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most enduringly popular play. The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde's career but also heralded his downfall. The Marquess of Queensberry, whose son Lord Alfred Douglas was Wilde's lover, planned to present the writer with a bouquet of rotten vegetables and disrupt the show. Wilde was tipped off and Queensberry was refused admission. Soon afterwards their feud came to a climax in court, where Wilde's homosexual double life was revealed to the Victorian public and he was eventually sentenced to imprisonment. His notoriety caused the play, despite its early success, to be closed after 86 performances. After his release, he published the play from exile in Paris, but he wrote no further comic or dramatic work. The Importance of Being Earnest has been revived many times since its premiere. It has been adapted for the cinema on three occasions. In The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Dame Edith Evans reprised her celebrated interpretation of Lady Bracknell; The Importance of Being Earnest (1992) by Kurt Baker used an all-black cast; and Oliver Parker's The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) incorporated some of Wilde's original material cut during the preparation of the original stage production.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" shows a full measure of Oscar Wilde's legendary wit, and embodies more than any of his other plays, his decency and warmth. This edition contains substantial excerpts from the original four-act version which was never produed, as well as the full test of the final three-act version, selections from Wilde's correspondence, and commentary by George Bernard Shaw, Max Beerbohm, St. John Hankin, and James Agate.

This play is based on an 1890's story by Oscar Wilde about Lord Arthur Savile's who is engaged to lovely Sybil Merton. Her pet chiromantist Podgers has read Lord Arthur's palm and foretold he would commit a murder. Lord Arthur desires a blissful married life and therefore feels duty bound to get the murder over with first. Despite help from his butler and the cheerful anarchist Winkelkopf, attempt after attempt fails.-5 women, 5 men

The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious person to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Contemporary reviews all praised the play's humour, though some were cautious about its explicit lack of social messages, while one considered it the culmination of Wilde's artistic career so far. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most enduringly popular play. Source: Wikipedia

The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious person to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Contemporary reviews all praised the play's humour, though some were cautious about its explicit lack of social messages, while one considered it the culmination of Wilde's artistic career so far. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most enduringly popular play. Source: Wikipedia

Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four-act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first performed on Saturday, 20 February 1892, at the St James's Theatre in London. The story concerns Lady Windermere, who suspects that her husband is having an affair with another woman. She confronts him with it but although he denies it, he invites the other woman, Mrs Erlynne, to his wife's birthday ball. Angered by her husband's supposed unfaithfulness, Lady Windermere decides to leave her husband for another lover. After discovering what has transpired, Mrs Erlynne follows Lady Windermere and attempts to persuade her to return to her husband and in the course of this, Mrs Erlynne is discovered in a compromising position. It is then revealed Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere's mother, who abandoned her family twenty years before the time the play is set. Mrs Erlynne sacrifices herself and her reputation to save her daughter's marriage. By the summer of 1891 Wilde had already written three plays: Vera; or, The Nihilists and The Duchess of Padua had found little success, and Salome had yet to be staged. Unperturbed, he decided to write another play but turned from tragedy to comedy. He went to the Lake District in the north of England, where he stayed with a friend and later met Robert Ross. Numerous characters in the play appear to draw their names from the north of England: Lady Windermere from the lake and nearby town Windermere (though Wilde had used "Windermere" earlier in Lord Arthur Savile's Crime), the Duchess of Berwick from Berwick-upon-Tweed, Lord Darlington from Darlington. Wilde began writing the play at the prodding of Sir George Alexander, the actor manager of St James's Theatre. The play was finished by October. 4] Alexander liked the play, and offered him an advance of 1,000 for it. Wilde, impressed by his confidence, opted to take a percentage instead, from which he would earn 7,000 in the first year alone (worth 747,700 today). Alexander was a meticulous manager and he and Wilde began exhaustive revisions and rehearsals of the play. Both were talented artists with strong ideas about their art. Wilde, for instance, emphasised attention to aesthetic minutiae rather than realism; he resisted Alexander's suggested broad stage movements, quipping that "Details are of no importance in life, but in art details are vital". These continued after the opening night, when at the suggestion of both friends and Alexander, Wilde made changes to reveal Mrs Erylnne's relationship with Lady Windermere gradually throughout the play, rather than reserving the secret for the final act. Despite these artistic differences, both were professional and their collaboration was a fruitful one.