The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde was already one of the best-known literary figures in Britain when he was persuaded to turn his extraordinary talents to the theatre. Between 1891 and 1895 he produced a sequence of distinctive plays which spearheaded the dramatic renaissance of the 1890s and retain their power today. This collection offers newly edited texts of Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Salome, An Ideal Husband, and, arguably the greatest farcical comedy in English, The Importance of Being Earnest.