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A Woman of No Importance Oscar Wilde

A Woman of No Importance By Oscar Wilde

A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde


$11.99
Condition - Very Good
Only 2 left

Summary

Play script, including biographical notes, textual details and information about the staging of the play.

A Woman of No Importance Summary

A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde

Staged in 1893, when Wilde had already achieved fame, wealth and notoriety, A Woman of No Importance was another attempt to fuse comedy of manners with high melodrama. Gerald Arbuthnot is a young man on the make, with an American heiress and the post of secretary to the brilliant but dissolute Lord Illingworth within his reach. When he asks his mother to celebrate with them, it turns out that Illingworth is Gerald's father, who seduced and abandoned his mother twenty years earlier. Loyalty weighs heavier than ambition, and Gerald declines the association with Illingworth. This edition, which also analyses Wilde's various drafts and revisions of the play, argues that the playwright here continued to explore the rivalry between an older man and woman for the affection of a beautiful young man.

About Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (b. Dublin, 1854) was an Irish playwright, who wrote one of the best loved comedies in the English language - The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). A leading wit and conversationalist in London society, his career was destroyed at its height when he was imprisoned for homosexual offences. Wilde was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and Magdalen College, Oxford. Settling in London, he became famous for his extravagant dress, long hair, and paradoxical views on art, literature, and morality. His first play, Vera (1880), a tragedy about Russian nihilists, was produced in New York to poor reviews. Success in the theatre came with the elegant drawing-room comedy Lady Windermere's Fan. A Woman of No Importance (1893) was another success. Other works for the theatre were An Ideal Husband (1895) and the biblical Salome (1896), written in French for Sarah Bernhardt. Wilde flaunted his homosexual affairs, including his ill-fated liaison with Lord Alfred Douglas. Following a celebrated trial in 1895 he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour. The sentence led to public humiliation, poor health, and bankruptcy. On his release in 1897 he left for France and remained in exile there until his death in 1900.

Additional information

GOR000722067
9780713673517
0713673516
A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde
Used - Very Good
Paperback
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
20041015
176
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

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