Table Of Content

Oscar Wilde The Complete Plays Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Woman of No Importance, Salomé, The Duchess of Padua, Vera, or The Nihilists, A Florentine Tragedy, La Sainte Courtisane This volume contains Wilde’s four full-length plays, including his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest–printed here in its usual three-act form, but with an appendix containing the best material from the original four-act version. Also included is Salomé, the play which was banned by the Lord Chamberlain in 1892 on the grounds that it introduced biblical characters on stage (the play was later performed by Sarah Bernhardt in Paris in 1896), and other less well-known plays by Wilde, two in verse. H. Montgomery Hyde, an acknowledged expert on Wilde and author of several books on him, has provided an introduction to Wilde’s life and work with special attention to the composition and performance of the plays. Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1856. In the years following his graduation from Oxford in 1878 he published poems and stories which included The Picture of Dorian Gray. Lady Windermere’s Fan was produced in 1892, A Woman of No Importance in 1893 and An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895. Later work included De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He died in 1900. 2 Methuen World Classics include Jean Anouilh (two volumes) John Arden (two volumes) Arden & D’Arcy Brendan Behan Aphra Behn Bertolt Brecht (six volumes) Büchner Bulgakov Calderón Anton Chekhov Noel Coward (seven volumes) Eduardo de Filippo Max Frisch John Galsworthy Gorky Harley Granville Barker (two volumes) Henrik Ibsen (six volumes) Lorca (three volumes) Marivaux Mustapha Matura David Mercer (two volumes) Arthur Miller (five volumes) Molière Musset Peter Nichols (two volumes) Clifford Odets Joe Orton A. W. Pinero 3 Luigi Pirandello Terence Rattigan (two volumes) W. Somerset Maugham (two volumes) August Strindberg (three volumes) J. M. Synge Ramón del Valle-Inclán Frank Wedekind Oscar Wilde 4 OSCAR WILDE The Complete Plays Lady Windermere’s Fan An Ideal Husband The Importance of Being Earnest A Woman of No Importance Salomé The Duchess of Padua Vera, or The Nihilists A Florentine Tragedy La Sainte Courtisane Introduced by H. Montgomery Hyde 5 Contents Cover Title Page Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde: A Chronology Introduction Lady Windermere’s Fan An Ideal Husband The Importance of Being Earnest Appendix: The Gribsby Scene from The Importance of Being Earnest with an explanatory note A Woman of No Importance Salomé Duchess of Padua Vera, or The Nihilists A Florentine Tragedy La Sainte Courtisane 6 Footnote Imprint 7 Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde: A Chronology 16 OctoberBorn at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, the second 1854 son of Sir William Wilde, aural surgeon, and Jane Lady Wilde, the Irish Nationalist poetess (Speranza). 1865–1871 At Portora Royal School, Enniskillen. 1871–74 At Trinity College, Dublin, Scholar and winner of Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek. 1874–78 At Magdalen College, Oxford. Wins Newdigate Prize for English Verse (Ravenna), and gains ‘Double First’ in university degree examinations. 1876 Father Sir William Wilde dies in Dublin, aged 61. 1880 Writes Vera; or the Nihilists. 1881 Collected Poems published; goes into four editions. 1882 Undertakes extensive lecture tour of the United States and Canada, his subjects being ‘The 8 English Renaissance of Art’, ‘House Decoration’, ‘Art and the Handicraftsman’, and ‘The Irish Poets of ’48’. 1883 Writes The Duchess of Padua. 1884 Marries Miss Constance Lloyd, daughter of Mr. Horatio Lloyd, Q.C., at St. James’s Church, Paddington. 1887–89 Editor of The Woman’s World for Cassell’s. 1888 Publishes The Happy Prince and Other Tales. 1889 The Portrait of Mr. W.H. published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (July). 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine (June). 1891 Meets Lord Alfred Douglas for first time. The Soul of Man Under Socialism published in The Fortnightly Review (February). The Picture of Dorian Gray republished in book form with numerous alterations and additions. Also publishes Intentions, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories, and A House of Pomegranates. 9 20 FebruaryLady Windermere’s Fan first performed at the St. 1892 James’s Theatre. Writes Salome in French. Sarah Bernhardt, the leading French actress, agrees to play title role and the play is being rehearsed in London when the Lord Chamberlain bans its public performance on the ground that it introduces Biblical characters, whose appearance on the stage was then forbidden. 1893 Publishes Salome in simultaneous French and English edition. A later English edition (1894) appeared, with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. 19 AprilA Woman of No Importance first performed at 1893 the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. 1894 Publishes The Sphinx with ‘decorations’ by Charles Ricketts. Lord Queensberry threatens to disown his son Lord Alfred Douglas unless he ceases to associate with Wilde, and Douglas refuses. Publication of The Chameleon containing Wilde’s ‘Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young’. Wilde also writes La Sainte Courtisane and A Florentine Tragedy at this time. 10