The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays (Oxford World’s Classics) by Oscar Wilde

Description

A new edition of Oscar Wilde’s witty and radical major plays that elegantly challenge Victorian conceptions of social propriety. It contains an accessible and comprehensive new introduction that positions the plays in the context of Wilde’s life, career, and the late-Victorian stage.

The Importance of Being Earnest(1895) proclaims that it is ‘A Trivial Play for Serious People’. In fact, collected here alongsideLady Windermere’s Fan(1892),Salome(1891, 1894),A Woman of No Importance(1893), andAn Ideal Husband(1895),Earnestshows that the questions raised by Wilde’s plays are anything but trivial. Witty and radical, they elegantly challenge Victorian social proprieties, featuring lies, blackmail, illicit desires, seductions, and double lives.

This volume, edited by Kate Hext, positions Wilde’s major plays in the context of Wilde’s life, career, and late-Victorian culture. Its introduction provides a readable overview with stylistic analyses to help readers understand the plays and why they are still fresh and relevant today, followed by sections on each play which explain key figures, plot devices, and Wilde’s evolution as a dramatist.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Oscar Wilde
LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN
SALOME
A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE
AN IDEAL HUSBAND
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
Appendix: Illustrations toSalomeby Aubrey Beardsley
Explanatory Notes

by Oscar Wilde

Oxford University Press

Pub Date:June 12, 2025

1.0″ H x 7.7″ L x 5.1″ W

496 pages

Paperback