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    A Woman of No Importance: A Play
    A Woman of No Importance: A Play
    A Woman of No Importance: A Play
    Ebook99 pages2 hours

    A Woman of No Importance: A Play

    By Oscar Wilde

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    “A Woman of No Importance” is an 1893 play in four acts by Oscar Wilde. First performed at the Haymarket Theatre in London, it represents a razor-sharp satire of England's aristocratic society in the late nineteenth century. Exceedingly witty and highly enjoyable, “A Woman of No Importance” is highly recommended for theatre lovers and those who have enjoyed other works by Wilde. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish poet and playwright who became one of the most popular in London during the 1880s and 1890s. Well-known for his sharp wit and extravagant attire, Wilde was a proponent of aestheticism and wrote in a variety of forms including poetry, fiction, and drama. He was famously imprisoned for homosexual acts from 1895 to 1897 and died at the age of 46, just three years after his release. A fantastic play brimming with Wilde's trademark wit not to be missed by fans of his seminal work. Other notable works by this author include: “Picture of Dorian Gray” (1890), “Salome” (1891), and “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895). Read & Co. Classics is proudly republishing this classic play now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of Oscar Wilde.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead & Co. Classics
    Release dateSep 8, 2020
    ISBN9781528769976
    A Woman of No Importance: A Play
    Author

    Oscar Wilde

    OSCAR WILDE (Dublín, 1854–París, 1900), poeta y dramaturgo irlandés, es considerado uno de los más célebres escritores en lengua inglesa de todos los tiempos, tanto por su provocadora personalidad como por su obra. Escribió relatos y novelas, como El retrato de Dorian Gray, poemas como el desgarrador La balada de la cárcel de Reading, y fue enormemente popular en el Londres victoriano por su exitosa producción teatral, como La importancia de llamarse Ernesto, y por su ingenio mordaz y brillante conversación.

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    • 3/5
      The title says it all. A condemnation of a society in which mistakes are never forgiven, in which souls are lost forever, for youthful indiscretion and surrender to one's emotions.
    • 5/5
      A small gem of a drama. Oscar Wilde's perfect t use of language makes this play both witty and stinging. A mother maintains her dignity in the face of disgrace, and endears herself to her son while deflating his natural father's haughty condescension. Excellent!

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    A Woman of No Importance - Oscar Wilde

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    A WOMAN OF

    NO IMPORTANCE

    A PLAY

    By

    OSCAR WILDE

    First published in 1893

    Copyright © 2020 Read & Co. Classics

    This edition is published by Read & Co. Classics,

    an imprint of Read & Co.

    This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any

    way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available

    from the British Library.

    Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.

    For more information visit

    www.readandcobooks.co.uk

    To

    Gladys Countess De Grey

    (Marchioness of Ripon)

    Contents

    Oscar Wilde

    THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

    THE SCENES OF THE PLAY

    LONDON: HAYMARKET THEATRE

    FIRST ACT

    SECOND ACT

    THIRD ACT

    FOURTH ACT

    Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. His parents were successful Dublin intellectuals, and Wilde became fluent in French and German early in life. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and subsequently won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was heavily influenced by John Ruskin and Walter Pate. Wilde proved himself to be an outstanding classicist. After university, he moved to London and became involved with the fashionable cultural and social circles of the day. At the age of just 25 he was well-known as a wit and a dandy, and as a spokesman for aestheticism—an artistic movement that emphasized aesthetic values ahead of socio-political themes—he undertook a lecture tour to the United States in 1882, before eventually returning to London to try his hand at journalism. It was also around this time that he produced most of his well-known short fiction.

    In 1891, Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel. Reviewers criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusions, although it was popular nonetheless. From 1892, Wilde focussed on playwriting. In that year, he gained commercial and critical success with Lady Windermere's Fan, and followed it with the comedy A Woman of No Importance (1893) and An Ideal Husband (1895). Then came Wilde's most famous play, The Importance of Being Earnest – a farcical comedy which cemented his artistic reputation and is now seen as his masterpiece.

    In 1895, the Marquess of Queensbury, who objected to his son spending so much time with Wilde because of Wilde's flamboyant behaviour and reputation, publicly insulted him. In response, Wilde brought an unsuccessful slander suit against him. The result of this inability to prove slander was his own trial on charges of sodomy, and the revealing to the transfixed Victorian public of salacious details of Wilde's private life followed. Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years of hard labour.

    Wilde was released from prison in 1897, having suffered from a number of ailments and injuries. He left England the next day for the continent, to spend his last three years in penniless exile. He settled in Paris, and didn't write anymore, declaring I can write, but have lost the joy of writing. Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on in November of 1900, converting to Catholicism on his deathbed.

    THE PERSONS

    OF THE PLAY

    LORD ILLINGWORTH

    SIR JOHN PONTEFRACT

    LORD ALFRED RUFFORD

    MR. KELVIL, M.P.

    THE VEN. ARCHDEACON DAUBENY, D.D.

    GERALD ARBUTHNOT

    FARQUHAR, BUTLER

    FRANCIS, FOOTMAN

    LADY HUNSTANTON

    LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT

    LADY STUTFIELD

    MRS. ALLONBY

    MISS HESTER WORSLEY

    ALICE, MAID

    MRS. ARBUTHNOT

    THE SCENES

    OF THE PLAY

    ACT I. The Terrace at Hunstanton Chase.

    ACT II. The Drawing-room at Hunstanton Chase.

    ACT III. The Hall at Hunstanton Chase.

    ACT IV. Sitting-room in Mrs. Arbuthnot’s House at Wrockley.

    TIME: The Present.

    PLACE: The Shires.

    The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours.

    LONDON:

    HAYMARKET THEATRE

    LESSEE AND MANAGER: Mr. H Beerbohm Tree

    April 19th, 1893

    LORD ILLINGWORTH,

    Mr. Tree.

    SIR JOHN PONTEFRACT,

    Mr. E. Holman Clark.

    LORD ALFRED RUFFORD, Mr. Ernest Lawford.

    MR. KELVIL, M.P., Mr. Charles Allan.

    THE VEN. ARCHDEACON DAUBENY, D.D., Mr. Kemble.

    GERALD ARBUTHNOT, Mr. Terry.

    FARQUHAR (Butler), Mr. Hay.

    FRANCIS (FOOTMAN), Mr. Montague.

    LADY HUNSTANTON, Miss Rose Leclercq.

    LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT, Miss Le Thière.

    LADY STUTFIELD, Miss Blanche Horlock.

    MRS. ALLONBY, Mrs. Tree.

    MISS HESTER WORSLEY, Miss Julia Neilson.

    ALICE (Maid), Miss Kelly.

    MRS. ARBUTHNOT, Mrs. Bernard-Beere.

    A WOMAN OF

    NO IMPORTANCE

    A PLAY

    FIRST ACT

    SCENE:

    Lawn in front of the terrace at Hunstanton.

    [SIR JOHN and LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT, MISS WORSLEY, on chairs under large yew tree.]

    LADY CAROLINE. I believe this is the first English country house you have stayed at, Miss Worsley?

    HESTER. Yes, Lady Caroline.

    LADY CAROLINE. You have no country houses, I am told, in America?

    HESTER. We have not many.

    LADY CAROLINE. Have you any country? What we should call country?

    HESTER. [Smiling.] We have the largest country in the world, Lady Caroline. They used to tell us at school that some of our states are as big as France and England put together.

    LADY CAROLINE. Ah! you must find it very draughty, I should fancy. [To SIR JOHN.] John, you should have your muffler. What is the use of my always knitting mufflers for you if you won’t wear them?

    SIR JOHN. I am quite warm, Caroline, I assure you.

    LADY CAROLINE. I think not, John. Well, you couldn’t come to a more charming place than this, Miss Worsley, though the house is excessively damp, quite unpardonably damp, and dear Lady Hunstanton is sometimes a little lax about the people she asks down here. [To SIR JOHN.] Jane mixes too much. Lord Illingworth, of course, is a man of high distinction. It is a privilege to meet him. And that member of Parliament, Mr. Kettle—

    SIR JOHN. Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.

    LADY CAROLINE. He must be quite respectable. One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one’s life, which speaks volumes for a man, nowadays. But Mrs. Allonby is hardly a very suitable person.

    HESTER. I dislike MRS. ALLONBY. I dislike her more than I can say.

    LADY CAROLINE. I am not sure, Miss Worsley, that foreigners like yourself should cultivate likes or dislikes about the people they are invited to meet. Mrs. Allonby is very well born. She is a niece of Lord Brancaster’s. It is said, of course, that she ran away twice before she was married. But you know how unfair people often are. I myself don’t believe she ran away more than once.

    HESTER. Mr. Arbuthnot is very charming.

    LADY CAROLINE. Ah, yes! the young man who has a post in a bank. Lady Hunstanton is most kind in asking him here, and Lord Illingworth seems to have taken quite a fancy to him. I am not sure, however, that Jane is right in taking him out of his position. In my young

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