The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

"The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People" by Oscar Wilde is a play first performed in 1895. Two young gentlemen lead double lives, each pretending to be named Ernest to escape social duties and win the hearts of their beloveds. Filled with sharp wit and clever wordplay, the farcical comedy gently mocks Victorian society through memorable characters including the formidable Lady Bracknell. The play parodies theatrical conventions while exploring themes of identity, deception, and the absurdities of proper society.

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About the author

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet and critic, and the most quoted wit of his century. His comedies made fun of the respectable London society that filled their theatres, and his one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was attacked as immoral on publication and then used against him in court. In 1895, at the height of his success with The Importance of Being Earnest, he was convicted of "gross indecency" and sentenced to two years' hard labour; the imprisonment produced De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol and ruined his health. He died in Paris three years after his release, aged forty-six.