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Read & Co. Classics presents this brand new edition of Oscar Wilde's famous play, "The Importance of Being Earnest", first performed in London in 1895. The play questions the nature and purpose of the institution of marriage, poking fun at the morals, assumptions and constraints found in Victorian values. During the play's release, Wilde's social life was aired to the Victorian public after an altercation with his lover's father, resulting in him being sent to prison for his homosexual relationship. Oscar Wilde (1884-1900) was an Irish author, playwright and poet. He moved from Dublin to Oxford where he studied under renowned art critics Walter Pater and John Ruskin and became associated with the literary and philosophical movement of Aestheticism.
About the author
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish poet, novelist, critic and playwright who rose to global fame in the 1880s as a larger-than-life public persona through his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and his enormously popular social comedies, An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance, and Lady Windermere's Fan. After two sensational trials he was sentenced to two years of hard labor in prison for having relations with men, which ruined his reputation and career. Today Wilde is celebrated as a courageous crusader for free expression, queer love, and anyone oppressed by hypocritical conventions.
