Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde's brilliant play makes fun of the English upper classes with light-hearted satire and dazzling humour. It is 1890's England and two young gentlemen are being somewhat limited with the truth. To inject some excitement into their lives, Mr Worthing invents a brother, Earnest, as an excuse to leave his dull country life behind him to pursue the object of his desire, the ravishing Gwendolyn. While across town Algernon Montecrieff decides to take the name Earnest, when visiting Worthing's young ward Cecily. The real fun and confusion begins when the two end up together and their deceptions are in danger of being revealed.

The Importance of Being Earnest

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and reader!=s notes to help the modern reader appreciate Wilde's wry wit and elaborate plot twists.Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers? entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The rapid-fire wit and eccentric characters of The Importance of Being Earnest have made it a mainstay of the high school curriculum for decades.Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax are both in love with the same mythical suitor. Jack Worthing has wooed Gewndolen as Ernest while Algernon has also posed as Ernest to win the heart of Jack's ward, Cecily. When all four arrive at Jack's country home on the same weekend'the "rivals" to fight for Ernest's undivided attention and the "Ernests" to claim their beloveds'pandemonium breaks loose.Only a senile nursemaid and an old, discarded hand-bag can save the day

william wukkuan

I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is. How old are you?

I haven’t the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind. To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own relations.

Bart Veldhuijsen 

Jack: Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense.

Tija

When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people.

Then a passionate celibacy is all that any of us can look forward to. 

It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time. 

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain. 

angie

i love classy british comedy from a irish gay man

ラップの神 del ray🗡🐸

Wonderfully funny story! Short, but I couldn't put it down.

Cláudia Mateus

Patrick Book

why did algernon eat all the cucumber sandwiches

Wilde's witty and buoyant comedy of manners, filled with some of literature's most famous epigrams, reprinted from an authoritative British edition. Considered Wilde's most perfect work.

elizabeth

I remembered virtually nothing from the first time I read this (I think it was during a rushed I-read-classics phase in high school?), and it is such a delight. It's like reading an exceptionally well-written sitcom. A sitcom that comments on class and wealth and marriage and skewers Victorian society at large etc. It's goofy, but grounded in satire, and utterly pitch-perfect.

Sarah Sammis

Fandom is a double edged sword. It can be good for the ego and dangerous for body. Add to the mixture of a sexually repressed society, a homosexual extra marital affair and a homophobic father and you have a career ender. That's of course not the plot of Oscar Wilde's most famous play The Importance of Being Earnest but the true life drama surrounding the play.

The play itself is a pretty tame farce of mistaken identities and promises of marriage if only the parties involved can unravel who is who. At the heart of the matter is the question of who is Earnest and who is Jack Worthing. Jack is a foundling, having been left a train station in a bag as an infant.

The play is three short and silly acts with lots witty dialogue. Sometimes it's confusing to read but on stage it's a riot. I've seen it performed ages ago but this was the first time for me to read it.

Lindy

Christine

help it's been too long since i first read this it is exactly as funny and irreverent as i remember

Kat Albanese

Laura Walden

Charlie Winchester 

 I'm not sure if I'm a fan of this work, but I do like the irony and wit in it! The title alone is genius! 

blue

It was fine, very short and entertaining. I can’t imagine doing multiple llce classes on it tho honestly its too silly a book for that. 

tam 🕴️

What's up with the ladies and the name Ernest? They really took that "Nomen est omen" to heart. Also, who leaves a baby in a bag by mistake? 

Jovana Gjekanovikj 

Wilde

Absolutely hilarious, anyone in need of a laugh should read this.

Het tweede toneelstuk dit jaar. Wel grappig dat dit stuk blijkbaar een inspiratie was voor waiting for godot. Verder goed stuk vooral de parallelen die steeds terugkomen.

The Importance of Being Earnest marks a central moment in late-Victorian literature, not only for its wit but also for its role in the shift from a Victorian to a Modern consciousness. The play began its career as a biting satire directed at the very audience who received it so delightedly, but ended its initial run as a harbinger of Wilde’s personal downfall when his lover’s father, who would later bring about Wilde’s arrest and imprisonment, attempted to disrupt the production. In addition to its focus on the textual history of the play, this Broadview Edition of Earnest provides a wide array of appendices. The edition locates Wilde’s work among the artistic and cultural contexts of the late nineteenth century and will provide scholars, students, and general readers with an important sourcebook for the play and the social, creative, and critical contexts of mid-1890s English life.

Colleen

I needed to read a play for my reading challenge, so I settled on The Importance of Being Earnest. I saw the movie version years ago and remembered it being funny. 

I haven't read a play since college. I'd say most of my lower rating is because I find trying to read a play as a novel has lost it's appeal to me. They're meant to be preformed and enjoyed via that performance not on the page. So although it was a fun story albeit a bit silly, it lacked resonance with me due to it's format. Next time I'll skip reading a play and just go see it.


This review fulfills the "A Play" category of the Popsugar reading challenge. http://www.popsugar.com/love/Reading-...

heleen de boever

The Importance Of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is a wonderful comedy in which the protagonists uphold fictitious personæ in order to escape burdensome social obligations. It is hailed as being one of the greatest plays of all-time by one of the worlds best loved authors. This is a classic, presented to you in its original form. A great addition to any book collection.

oscar wilde is so funny ?! i had a blast reading this and literally snorted out loud so many times. this was such an amusing read overall so if you somehow haven’t read this yet, do it now !!

Ivy X

An entertaining read but I wonder if I would've liked it more if I took this in a class setting where we would have further analysis of plot, themes, and characters.

Maria Elkoro-Iribe

increíble el gossip más largo que he leído en mi vida

Jasmine Stanway

I just ADORE this play, it makes me laugh out loud! I happily read it through an audiobook that held a superb cast, and reminded me very much of the Colin Firth film adaptation. I definitely plan to read this again!

Nicole Sonja

** spoiler alert **
           This play will forever be one of the funniest things I've ever read. I highly recommend it to the world.

The Importance of Being Earnest

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