The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

A universal favorite, The Importance of Being Earnest displays Oscar Wilde’s wit and theatrical genius at their brilliant best. Subtitled “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,” this hilarious attack on Victorian manners and morals turns a pompous world on it’s head, lets duplicity lead to happiness, and makes riposte the highest form of art. Written, according to Wilde, “by a butterfly for butterflies,” this, his last and greatest play, is not only wonderfully lighthearted, but a dazzling masterpiece of comic entertainment.Although it was originally written in four acts, The Importance of Being Earnest is usually performed in a three-act version. This authoritative edition features an appendix that restores valuable lines that appeared in the original.Also included in this special collection are Wilde’s first comedy success, Lady Windemere’s Fan and his richly sensual melodrama, Salome , which he called “that terrible coloured little tragedy I once in some strange mood wrote” – and which shocked and enraged the censors of his time.With an introduction by Sylvan Barnet, Professor of English at Tufts University.