The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101560150
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
A universal favorite, The Importance of Being Earnest displays Oscar Wilde’s wit and theatrical genius at their brilliant best. Subtitled “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,” this hilarious attack on Victorian manners and morals turns a pompous world on its head, lets duplicity lead to happiness, and makes riposte the highest form of art. Written, according to Wilde, “by a butterfly for butterflies,” it is a dazzling masterpiece of comic entertainment. Although it was originally written in four acts, The Importance of Being Earnest is usually performed in a three-act version. This authoritative edition features an appendix that restores valuable lines that appeared in the original. Also included in this special collection are Wilde’s first comedy success, Lady Windermere’s Fan, and his richly sensual melodrama, Salomé, which he called “that terrible coloured little tragedy I once in some strange mood wrote”—and which shocked and enraged the censors of his time. Includes an Introduction by Sylvan Barnet and an Afterword by Elise Bruhl and Michael Gamer

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101560150
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book Here

Book Description
A universal favorite, The Importance of Being Earnest displays Oscar Wilde’s wit and theatrical genius at their brilliant best. Subtitled “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,” this hilarious attack on Victorian manners and morals turns a pompous world on its head, lets duplicity lead to happiness, and makes riposte the highest form of art. Written, according to Wilde, “by a butterfly for butterflies,” it is a dazzling masterpiece of comic entertainment. Although it was originally written in four acts, The Importance of Being Earnest is usually performed in a three-act version. This authoritative edition features an appendix that restores valuable lines that appeared in the original. Also included in this special collection are Wilde’s first comedy success, Lady Windermere’s Fan, and his richly sensual melodrama, Salomé, which he called “that terrible coloured little tragedy I once in some strange mood wrote”—and which shocked and enraged the censors of his time. Includes an Introduction by Sylvan Barnet and an Afterword by Elise Bruhl and Michael Gamer

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780225659023
Category :
Languages : es
Pages : 127

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Book Description


The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: First Avenue Editions ™
ISBN: 1467756547
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 93

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Book Description
Jack Worthing gets antsy living at his country estate. As an excuse, he spins tales of his rowdy brother Earnest living in London. When Jack rushes to the city to confront his "brother," he's free to become Earnest and live a different lifestyle. In London, his best friend, Algernon, begins to suspect Earnest is leading a double life. Earnest confesses that his real name is Jack and admits the ruse has become tricky as two women have become enchanted with the idea of marrying Earnest. On a whim, Algernon also pretends to be Earnest and encounters the two women as they meet at the estate. With two Earnests who aren't really earnest and two women in love with little more than a name, this play is a classic comedy of errors. This is an unabridged version of Oscar Wilde's English play, first published in 1899.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde PDF Author: Matthew Sturgis
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0525656367
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 865

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Book Description
The fullest, most textural, most accurate—most human—account of Oscar Wilde's unique and dazzling life—based on extensive new research and newly discovered materials, from Wilde's personal letters and transcripts of his first trial to newly uncovered papers of his early romantic (and dangerous) escapades and the two-year prison term that shattered his soul and his life. "Simply the best modern biography of Wilde." —Evening Standard Drawing on material that has come to light in the past thirty years, including newly discovered letters, documents, first draft notebooks, and the full transcript of the libel trial, Matthew Sturgis meticulously portrays the key events and influences that shaped Oscar Wilde's life, returning the man "to his times, and to the facts," giving us Wilde's own experience as he experienced it. Here, fully and richly portrayed, is Wilde's Irish childhood; a dreamy, aloof boy; a stellar classicist at boarding school; a born entertainer with a talent for comedy and a need for an audience; his years at Oxford, a brilliant undergraduate punctuated by his reckless disregard for authority . . . his arrival in London, in 1878, "already noticeable everywhere" . . . his ten-year marriage to Constance Lloyd, the father of two boys; Constance unwittingly welcoming young men into the household who became Oscar's lovers, and dying in exile at the age of thirty-nine . . . Wilde's development as a playwright. . . becoming the high priest of the aesthetic movement; his successes . . . his celebrity. . . and in later years, his irresistible pull toward another—double—life, in flagrant defiance and disregard of England's strict sodomy laws ("the blackmailer's charter"); the tragic story of his fall that sent him to prison for two years at hard labor, destroying his life and shattering his soul.

The Belle ́s Stratagem

The Belle ́s Stratagem PDF Author: Hannah Cowley
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3734041732
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
Reproduction of the original: The Belle ́s Stratagem by Hannah Cowley

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN: 0199535973
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
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. This is the only fully annotated edition of Wilde's major plays, which spearheaded the dramatic renaissance of the 1890s and retain their power today.[BOX TO GO ABOVE PLAYS] Under the General Editorship of Dr Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of these plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. In addition, there is a scholarly introduction and detailed annotation.

A Woman of No Importance

A Woman of No Importance PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780712904117
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description


Lady Windermere's Fan

Lady Windermere's Fan PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher:
ISBN: 1537822578
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 53

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Book Description
Beautiful, aristocratic, an adored wife and young mother, Lady Windermere is 'a fascinating puritan' whose severe moral code leads her to the brink of social suicide. The only one who can save her is the mysterious Mrs Erlynne whose scandalous relationship with Lord Windermere has prompted her fatal impulse. And Mrs Erlynne has a secret - a secret Lady Windermere must never know if she is to retain her peace of mind.

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416500421
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Each volume in a collection of affordable, readable editions of some of the world's greatest works of literature features a chronology of the author's life and career, a concise introduction containing valuable background information, a timeline of significant events, an outline of key plot points and themes, detailed explanatory notes, critical analyses, discussion questions, and a list of recommended books and films.

The Importance of Being Earnest and Five Other Plays

The Importance of Being Earnest and Five Other Plays PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
ISBN: 9781420946994
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Witty playwright Oscar Wilde is most famous for his 1895 play "The Importance of Being Earnest." The two protagonists use a false identity, Earnest, as a way to escape from unwanted social obligations. However, they encounter difficulties keeping up their personas as their social circles draw closer together. Wilde drew upon what he thought were outrageous social conventions of the Victorian Era and used satire to show the absurdity of its beliefs, like how marriage was more of a boring burden than a joyous commitment. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is one of the best known plays of the Victorian Era and has endured many revivals over the past one-hundred years. It is also a prime example of many Victorian gaffes, though they have to be viewed through the lens of Wilde's sardonic humor. Gathered in the collection "The Importance of Being Earnest and Five Other Plays" are "Lady Windermere's Fan," "A Woman of No Importance," and "An Ideal Husband," all of which speak to Wilde's satirical tone and attitude toward the Victorian Era. Also included are the fragmentary play, "A Florentine Tragedy" and "Salome," a retelling of the Biblical story where Salome asks for John the Baptist's head on a platter. Its tone is much darker and tragic than most of Wilde's other works, but its ability to portray such a gruesome event in a respectful way only proves that Oscar Wilde is one of the most important writers of the nineteenth century.