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The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People was published when Oscar Wilde was at the height of his fame and success in 1895. Owing to its universal appeal across generations and the controversial theme of the play, it is still performed on the stages in London. The play is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain dubious garb to escape the drabness of social obligations. The major Victorian traditions and customs, even the seriousness of marriage, were trivialised in the play. This play is considered to be the “culmination of Wilde’s artistic career”.
The first night of staging the play was both the pinnacle and downfall of Wilde’s career. The feud between the Marquess of Queensberry and Wilde took them to the court. The climax in the court revealed Wilde’s love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas who was the son of Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde, in a turn of events, came under the heat of the charges of gross indecency and his homosexuality was disclosed to the Victorian public. Wilde therefore was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour. Wilde’s unsavoury reputation caused the play to go out of performance after only 86 performances. Following this grave incident of his life, Wilde did not write any more satirical comedies or dramatic works.
The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People was published when Oscar Wilde was at the height of his fame and success in 1895. Owing to its universal appeal across generations and the controversial theme of the play, it is still performed on the stages in London. The play is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain dubious garb to escape the drabness of social obligations. The major Victorian traditions and customs, even the seriousness of marriage, were trivialised in the play. This play is considered to be the “culmination of Wilde’s artistic career”.
The first night of staging the play was both the pinnacle and downfall of Wilde’s career. The feud between the Marquess of Queensberry and Wilde took them to the court. The climax in the court revealed Wilde’s love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas who was the son of Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde, in a turn of events, came under the heat of the charges of gross indecency and his homosexuality was disclosed to the Victorian public. Wilde therefore was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour. Wilde’s unsavoury reputation caused the play to go out of performance after only 86 performances. Following this grave incident of his life, Wilde did not write any more satirical comedies or dramatic works.
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde is the full name of this literary stalwart. Born on 16 October 1854, he had explored various genres throughout the 1880s and finally got acclaimed as the most popular Irish poet and playwright in London in the early 1890s. Wilde belonged to an intellectual Anglo-Irish family of Dublin. He was fluent in French and German from an early age. He had established himself as a higher order of classicist at Trinity College Dublin followed by Oxford. He enjoyed the superior tutelage of the status of Walter Pater and John Ruskin and was initiated into the emerging philosophy of aestheticism. Post university, Wilde shifted to London to be in the heart of the fashionable and cultural social circles.
Wilde is known as the best in the field of his creation of epigrams where we find the author presenting brief, interesting, memorable, and often satirical observations along with his plays that enjoy a humongous popularity across time and generations till date. He promoted aestheticism through a book of poems. He also worked as a lecturer in the U.S. and Canada on the new-in-vogue topics of “English Renaissance in Art” and interior decoration. He was also a journalist. Wilde was a very popular personality of his times on account of his social skills, his sharp wit, ostentatious dressing sense, and gift of gab.
His very famous novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, portrays a refined sense of his combined thoughts on the role of art and mightier social themes of decadence, duplicity and beauty. This philosophical novel is based on a portrait of Dorian Gray painted by Basil Hallward, who has been depicted as a friend of Dorian and also an artist but at the same time attracted to Dorian’s physical beauty. Through Basil’s connection, Dorian then comes in contact with Lord Henry Wotton and gets deeply influenced by the hedonistic philosophy of the aristocrat. His senses get filled with the importance of beauty and sensual satisfaction as the two most worthy things to be pursued and achieved in life. Dorian comes under the complete sway of the ephemeral nature of beauty and with this realization he sells his soul in exchange of his portrait aging in place of him. The book then proceeds with the libertine ways of a sold and lost soul of Dorian with eternal beauty and his portrait under the decadence of time even while visually recording each of Dorian’s sins. This novel of his was the centre of tumultuous controversy and criticism but has earned the reputation of a gothic classical literature across the ages.
His play Salome (1891) was refused a licence in England due to restriction on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Wilde then wrote four social comedies in the early 1890s, and sealed his position as the most successful and popular playwrights of late-Victorian London. His other works of considerable repute are The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), De Profundis (published posthumously in 1905), and his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem celebrating the harshness of prison life. Wilde passed away on 30 November 1900.
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The Importance of Being Earnest
A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
By
Oscar Wilde
Newgen Knowledge Works Offices
Chennai Pondicherry Pune Kottayam Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
Leipzig (Germany) Amsterdam (Netherlands) Stroud (UK) Texas (USA)
First published in 1895 by Smithers
This book has been inspired from the original version of The Importance Of Being Earnest first published in 1895, available in the public domain. Due care and diligence have been taken while bringing out this edition; neither the author nor the publishers of the book hold any responsibility for any mistake that may have inadvertently crept in. The publishers shall not be liable for any direct, consequential, or incidental damages arising out of the use of the book.
© Trove Books Edition, 2023
Paperback ISBN: 978-93-95987-72-1
eBook ISBN: 978-93-95987-71-4
WebPDF: 978-93-95987-80-6
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About the Author
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde is the full name of this literary stalwart. Born on 16 October 1854, he had explored various genres throughout the 1880s and finally got acclaimed as the most popular Irish poet and playwright in London in the early 1890s. Wilde belonged to an intellectual Anglo-Irish family of Dublin. He was fluent in French and German from an early age. He had established himself as a higher order of classicist at Trinity College Dublin followed by Oxford. He enjoyed the superior tutelage of the status of Walter Pater and John Ruskin and was initiated into the emerging philosophy of aestheticism. Post university, Wilde shifted to London to be in the heart of the fashionable and cultural social circles.
Wilde is known as the best in the field of his creation of epigrams where we find the author presenting brief, interesting, memorable, and often satirical observations along with his plays that enjoy a humongous popularity across time and generations till date. He promoted aestheticism through a book of poems. He also worked as a lecturer in the U.S. and Canada on the new-in-vogue topics of “English Renaissance in Art” and interior decoration. He was also a journalist. Wilde was a very popular personality of his times on account of his social skills, his sharp wit, ostentatious dressing sense, and gift of gab.
His very famous novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, portrays a refined sense of his combined thoughts on the role of art and mightier social themes of decadence, duplicity and beauty. This philosophical novel is based on a portrait of Dorian Gray painted by Basil Hallward, who has been depicted as a friend of Dorian and also an artist but at the same time attracted to Dorian’s physical beauty. Through Basil’s connection, Dorian then comes in contact with Lord Henry Wotton and gets deeply influenced by the hedonistic philosophy of the aristocrat. His senses get filled with the importance of beauty and sensual satisfaction as the two most worthy things to be pursued and achieved in life. Dorian comes under the complete sway of the ephemeral nature of beauty and with this realization he sells his soul in exchange of his portrait aging in place of him. The book then proceeds with the libertine ways of a sold and lost soul of Dorian with eternal beauty and his portrait under the decadence of time even while visually recording each of Dorian’s sins. This novel of his was the centre of tumultuous controversy and criticism but has earned the reputation of a gothic classical literature across the ages.
His play Salome (1891) was refused a licence in England due to restriction on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Wilde then wrote four social comedies in the early 1890s, and sealed his position as the most successful and popular playwrights of late-Victorian London. His other works of considerable repute are The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), De Profundis (published posthumously in 1905), and his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem celebrating the harshness of prison life. Wilde passed away on 30 November 1900.