The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest is perhaps Oscar Wilde's most popular play - since its first performance in 1895, it has seen countless productions and three film adaptations, and, in the words of the journalist Mark Lawson, is 'the second most known and quoted play in English after Hamlet'.

Brimming with the counter-intuitive wit with which Wilde's name is synonymous, the play follows two young men, Algernon and Jack, as they come to grips with one another's 'Bunburying' - deceits involving invented identities and escaping unwanted socialising - which spiral out of control. Culminating in a hauntingly brilliant scene with a cast of characters dripping with satire, an unpublished manuscript and an unforgettable handbag, The Importance of Being Earnest lambasts the Victorian yearning for morality and meaning, and leaves the reader aching for an encore.

About the Author
Wilde, Oscar: - "Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900) was an author, poet and one of the best-known playwrights in the English canon. His private life is widely discussed, since his sexuality and relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas led him to his being convicted for 'gross indecency'. He was sentenced to two years' hard labour, and while in prison he wrote De Profundis, a letter to Douglas describing the trials of his incarceration, which was eventually published in expurgated form. He is best remembered today for his short-story collections for children, The Happy Prince and A House of Pomegranates, his poetry, especially The Ballad of Reading Gaol, his novel Dorian Gray and his plays - particularly Salomé and his drawing-room and society comedies Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest."