The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays (Barnes

The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays, by Oscar Wilde, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.



Oscar Wilde’s legendary wit dazzles in The Importance of Being Earnest, one of the greatest and most popular works of drama to emerge from Victorian England. A light-hearted satire of the absurdity of all forms and conventions, this comic masterpiece features an unforgettable cast of characters who, as critic Max Beerbohm observed, “speak a kind of beautiful nonsense—the language of high comedy, twisted into fantasy.”

This collection also includes Oscar Wilde’s most famous comedies, Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband, as well as his poetic tragedy Salomé—all written between 1891 and 1895, Wilde’s most creative period. George Bernard Shaw said of Oscar Wilde that he is “our most thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theater.”

Kenneth Krauss received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He teaches drama at the College of Saint Rose, where he also directs and produces. His most recent book is The Drama of Fallen France, on French theater under the German Occupation. More Reviews and Recommendations Biography

The ever-quotable Oscar Wilde once said, "Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it." From his outsize celebrity in Victorian London to his authorship of fiction, drama, and poetry that uniquely captured his era, it's fair to say that Wilde succeeded on both counts. More About the Author Editorial Reviews - The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) From the Publisher

The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays, by Oscar Wilde, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.



Oscar Wilde’s legendary wit dazzles in The Importance of Being Earnest, one of the greatest and most popular works of drama to emerge from Victorian England. A light-hearted satire of the absurdity of all forms and conventions, this comic masterpiece features an unforgettable cast of characters who, as critic Max Beerbohm observed, “speak a kind of beautiful nonsense—the language of high comedy, twisted into fantasy.”

This collection also includes Oscar Wilde’s most famous comedies, Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband, as well as his poetic tragedy Salomé—all written between 1891 and 1895, Wilde’s most creative period. George Bernard Shaw said of Oscar Wilde that he is “our most thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theater.”

Kenneth Krauss received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He teaches drama at the College of Saint Rose, where he also directs and produces. His most recent book is The Drama of Fallen France, on French theater under the German Occupation. Loading... Meet the Writer - The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Fact File

Name:
Oscar Wilde

Date of Birth:
October 16, 1854

Place of Birth:
Dublin, Ireland

Date of Death:
November 30, 1900

Place of Death:
Paris, France

Education:
The Royal School in Enniskillen, Dublin, 1864; Trinity College, Dublin, 1871; Magdalen College, Oxford, England, 1874 Biography

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854, to an intellectually prominent Dublin family. His father, Sir William Wilde, was a renowned physician who was knighted for his work as medical adviser to the 1841 and 1851 Irish censuses; his mother, Lady Jane Francesca Elgee, was a poet and journalist. Wilde showed himself to be an exceptional student. While at the Royal School in Enniskillen, he took First Prize in Classics. He continued his studies at Trinity College, Dublin, on scholarship, where he won high honors, including the Demyship Scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford.

At Oxford, Wilde engaged in self-discovery, through both intellectual and personal pursuits. He fell under the influence of the aesthetic philosophy of Walter Pater, a tutor and author who inspired Wilde to create art for the sake of art alone. It was during these years that Wilde developed a reputation as an eccentric and a foppish dresser who always had a flower in his lapel. Wilde won his first recognition as a writer when the university awarded him the Newdigate Prize for his poem "Ravenna."

Wilde went from Oxford to London, where he published his first volume of verse, Poems, in 1881. From 1882 to 1884, he toured the United States, Ireland, and England, giving a series of lectures on Aestheticism. In America, between speaking engagements, he met some of the great literary minds of the day, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Walt Whitman. His first play, Vera, was staged in New York but did poorly. After his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884 and the birth of his two sons, Wilde began to make his way into London's theatrical, literary, and homosexual scenes. He published Intentions, a collection of dialogues on aesthetic philosophy, in 1891, the year he met Lord Alfred Douglas, who became his lover and his ultimate downfall. Wilde soon produced several successful plays, including Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) and A Woman of No Importance (1893). Wilde's popularity was short-lived, however. In 1894, during the concurrent runs of his plays An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, he became the subject of a homosexual scandal that led him to withdraw all theater engagements and declare bankruptcy. Urged by many to flee the country rather than face a trial in which he would surely be found guilty, Wilde chose instead to remain in England. Arrested in 1895 and found guilty of "homosexual offenses," Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labor and began serving time in Wandsworth prison. He was later transferred to the detention center in Reading Gaol, where he composed De Profundis, a dramatic monologue written as a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas that was published in 1905. Upon his release, Wilde retreated to the Continent, where he lived out the rest of his life under a pseudonym. He published his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, in 1898 while living in exile.

During his lifetime, Wilde was most often the center of controversy. The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was serialized in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890 and published in book form the next year, is considered to be Wilde's most personal work. Scrutinized by critics who questioned its morality, the novel portrays the author's internal battles and arrives at the disturbing possibility that "ugliness is the only reality." Oscar Wilde died penniless, of cerebral meningitis, in Paris on November 30, 1900. He is buried in Paris's Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Author biography from the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Good To Know

To make ends meet, Wilde edited the popular ladies' periodical Woman's Day from 1887 to 1889.

When in exile on the Continent, Wilde was forced to live under the alias Sebastian Melmoth.

It is rumored that Wilde's last written words were found in his journal, left behind in the Left Bank flophouse where he died: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has got to go."

Wilde is buried in the Paris cemetery of Père Lachaise; there, he keeps company with other famous artists, including Jim Morrison and Edith Piaf.

Features - The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read an Excerpt Read an Excerpt

From Kenneth Krauss's Introduction to The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays

On a very immediate level, Earnest explores the nature of the connection between a symbol and what it represents. Both Gwendolen and Cecily assert that they cannot marry men whose names are not Ernest. Their superficiality, however, may obscure the wordplay inherent in the name itself: The word "earnest" and the name "Ernest" sound exactly alike. Is it men who have not been arbitrarily assigned the name "Ernest" by their parents whom the girls reject, or is it perhaps men who are not in "earnest"? In the play itself, it would appear both girls are looking for Ernest, and yet what the name has come to represent for them is the honest and open—that is, the "earnest"—acknowledgment that their suitors are just what they say they are: attractive, stylish, and wicked men of the world.

Missing is the outcast female from the earlier dramas: In Earnest none of the female characters, neither Gwendolen nor Cecily, nor Lady Bracknell, and certainly not Miss Prism, have gone far beyond the boundaries that Victorian society had set up for ladies and young women. Curiously, however, their well-bred innocence includes an awareness of that underworld into which fallen women fall. Cecily's diary, written to describe her imaginary courtship with the nonexistent but immoral Ernest, suggests an attraction to what her elders characterize as sinful. Miss Prism fears lascivious content in Cecily's economics text.

Still, if their lack of worldly experience appears slight, the women in Earnest have mastered the art of surfaces. Gwendolen's passion for Jack is based largely, perhaps completely, on his assumed name (and so, as we later learn, is Cecily's attraction to Algernon). Lady Bracknell, who may be regarded as a more terrifying version of the Duchess of Berwick or Lady Caroline Pontefract, becomes the epitome of upper-class snobbism: Her commands and judgments are based purely on how she anticipates she (or those around her) will be perceived by others. Her egocentricity is so enormous that her presence in a room makes young lovers quake. And yet her amazing and hilarious contradictions suggest there is little beyond the formidable facade. Lady Bracknell is merely a collection of other people's social prejudices.

The men in Earnest have devised tactics to protect themselves from the Lady Bracknells of the world. Masquerading as someone else, they manage to enter the demimonde of ill repute (or at least of pleasure). They manage to invent excuses (say, an uncontrollable brother or an invalid friend) that allow them to exit propriety and enter the gray area between good and bad, where they may enjoy themselves. The fopperies of Darlington and Illingworth, along with their mutual fascination with evil, are present in both Ernests. Yet Jack and Algernon are positive examples of young men-about-town who look upon upright Victorian morality with justified cynicism; like Goring, both seem capable of becoming husbands who, if not ideal, have been made better by their encounters in the shadier world.

If the complicated yet improbable plot appears to carry minimal meaning, spectators must look elsewhere for substance. That little if anything seems to go deeper than the surface is in itself significant. In Earnest people act as if they have no concern with what lies beyond the way things look to others. The ironies that give the play much of its humor, then, resonate with the notion that these characters are inhabitants of a universe in which bizarre contradictions make perfect sense. Their obsession with how things appear, and their need to disguise their real and private lives, have shaped them.