The Importance of Being Earnest: Revised Edition

by Oscar Wilde, Francesca Coppa (Editor)

Overview

The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the most enduringly popular of British comic dramas, and a mainstay of English literature and drama courses at college and university level. This is an ideal edition for students with on-page notes to help clarify meaning, and a completely new introduction. In the new introduction, Francesca Coppa explores recent critical approaches to the play, including queer and postcolonial readings, as well as giving the context in which the play was written and how it relates to Wilde's personal life and public persona. The introduction also discusses the play's stage history, providing students with an ideal overview of the play and its resonances for contemporary audiences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472585219
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	01/22/2016
Series:	New Mermaids
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	899 KB

About the Author

Francesca Coppa is Professor of English,Muhlenberg College, USA
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 Salomé (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.

Date of Birth:

October 16, 1854

Date of Death:

November 30, 1900

Place of Birth:

Dublin, Ireland

Place of Death:

Paris, France

Education:

The Royal School in Enniskillen, Dublin, 1864; Trinity College, Dublin, 1871; Magdalen College, Oxford, England, 1874

Table of Contents

Introduction
Bibliography
The Importance of Being Earnest