The Importance Of Being Earnest and Other Plays

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) proclaims that it is A Trivial Play for Serious People. In fact, collected here alongside Lady Windermeres Fan (1892), Salome (1891, 1894), A Woman of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895), Earnest shows that the questions raised by Wildes 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 Wildes major plays in the context of Wildes 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 Wildes evolution as a dramatist.