The Importance of Being Earnest / Edition 1

by Oscar Wilde, Samuel Lyndon Gladden

Overview

This edition’s introduction and appendices focus on the play’s textual history and its importance to late-Victorian culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781551116945
Publisher:	Broadview Press
Publication date:	11/13/2009
Series:	Broadview Editions
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Samuel Lyndon Gladden is Associate Professor, Coordinator of Graduate Studies in English, and Dean’s Faculty Administrative Fellow for the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Northern Iowa.

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

Read an Excerpt

FIRST ACT

SCENE - Morning-room in Algernon's flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room.

[Lane is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has ceased, Algernon enters.]

ALGERNON: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?

LANE: I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.

ALGERNON: I'm sorry for that, for your sake. I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.

LANE: Yes, sir.

ALGERNON: And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell?

LANE: Yes, sir.[Hands them on a salver.]

ALGERNON: [Inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.] Oh! . . . by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed.

LANE: Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint.

ALGERNON: Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.

LANE: I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.

ALGERNON: Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that!

LANE: I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.

ALGERNON: [Languidly.] I don't know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane.

LANE: No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself.

ALGERNON: Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you.

LANE: Thank you, sir. [Lane goes out.]

ALGERNON: Lane's views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility. [Enter Lane.]

LANE: Mr. Ernest Worthing. [Enter Jack.] [Lane goes out.]

ALGERNON: How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town?

JACK: Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see, Algy!

ALGERNON: [Stiffly.] I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o'clock. Where have you been since last Thursday?

JACK: [Sitting down on the sofa.] In the country.

ALGERNON: What on earth do you do there?

JACK: [Pulling off his gloves.] When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

ALGERNON: And who are the people you amuse?

JACK: [Airily.] Oh, neighbours, neighbours.

ALGERNON: Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire?

JACK: Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them.

ALGERNON: How immensely you must amuse them! [Goes over and takes sandwich.] By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not?

JACK: Eh? Shropshire? Yes, of course. Hallo! Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young? Who is coming to tea?

ALGERNON: Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen.

JACK: How perfectly delightful!

ALGERNON: Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt Augusta won't quite approve of your being here.

JACK: May I ask why?

ALGERNON: My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you.

JACK: I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to propose to her.

ALGERNON: I thought you had come up for pleasure? . . . I call that business.

JACK: How utterly unromantic you are!

ALGERNON: I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.

JACK: I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted.

ALGERNON: Oh! there is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are made in Heaven - [Jack puts out his hand to take a sandwich. Algernon at once interferes.] Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta. [Takes one and eats it.]

JACK: Well, you have been eating them all the time.

ALGERNON: That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. [Takes plate from below.] Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.

JACK: [Advancing to table and helping himself.] And very good bread and butter it is too.

ALGERNON: Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to eat it all. You behave as if you were married to her already. You are not married to her already, and I don't think you ever will be.

JACK: Why on earth do you say that?

ALGERNON: Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.

JACK: Oh, that is nonsense!

ALGERNON: It isn't. It is a great truth. It accounts for the extraordinary number of bachelors that one sees all over the place. In the second place, I don't give my consent.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Oscar Wilde: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

The Importance of Being Earnest:
A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

Appendix A: Playbills for The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

1. The First, Uncensored Playbill
2. The Second, Censored Playbill

Appendix B: Reactions and Reviews

1. From The Daily Graphic (15 February 1895)
2. From William Archer, The World (20 February 1895)
3. From The Observer (17 February 1895)
4. From The Times (15 February 1895)
5. From Bernard Shaw, Saturday Review (1895)
6. From Max Beerbohm, Around Theatres (1902)

Appendix C: Ada Leverson’s “The Advisability of Not Being Brought Up in a Handbag” (1895)

1. Ada Leverson, “The Advisability of Not Being Brought Up in a Handbag,” Punch; or,The London Charivari (2 March 1895)
2. Telegram from Oscar Wilde to Ada Leverson (15 February 1895)

Appendix D: Three Works by Gilbert and Sullivan

1. From W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, Patience; or, Bunthorne’s Bride (1881)
2. From W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, The Gondoliers; or, The King of Barataria (1889)
3. From W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, HMS Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor (1878)

Appendix E: From J.G.F. Nicholson, Love in Earnest (1892)

Appendix F: Conduct Manuals

1. From Mrs. Humphrey, Manners for Men (1897)
2. From Julia McNair Wright, Practical Life; or,Ways and Means for Developing Character and Resources (1881)

Appendix G: On Dandyism and on Wilde as a Dandy

1. From Charles Kendrick, Ye Soul Agonies in Ye Life of Oscar Wilde (1882)
2. George Frederick Keller, “The Modern Messiah,” Wasp (31 March 1882)
3. Linley Sambourne, “O.W. [Punch’s Fancy Portraits 37],” Punch; or,The London Charivari (25 June 1881)
4. From Lloyd Lewis and Henry Justin Smith, “No Wave of His Chiseled Hand” (1936)
5. “Aestheticism as Oscar Understands It” (1882)
6. “Mr. Wild [sic] of Borneo” (1882)
7. W.H. Beard, “The Aesthetic Monkey” (1882)

Appendix H: Other Works by Wilde

1. From “A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated” (1894)
2. From “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young” (1894)
3. From “Preface,” The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
4. From “The Decay of Lying” (1889)
5. From De Profundis (1897; published 1962)
6. Letter to Philip Houghton (February 1894)
7. Letter to George Alexander (July 1894)
8. Letter to George Alexander (September 1894)
9. Letter to George Alexander (October 1894)
10. Letter to an Unidentified Correspondent (February 1895)
11. Letter to Lord Alfred Douglas (February 1895)
12. Letter to R.V. Shone (February 1895)

Appendix I: From the Original Four-Act Version

1. Passages Regarding Algernon’s and Ernest’s Past-due Accounts
2. Passages Illuminating the Characters and Roles of Miss Prism and Canon Chasuble
3. Additional Passages

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Samuel Lyndon Gladden’s edition of The Importance of Being Earnest continues Broadview Press’s proven tradition of excellence. This book will serve the undergraduate, general reader, and scholar. Gladden’s introduction is provocative, and the ancillary materials are especially welcome. Gladden balances familiar with unexpected contemporary works — from Gilbert and Sullivan to Ada Leverson, playbills to reviews, poems to pictures, conduct manuals to dandy tracts — plus excerpts of Wilde’s writings, including an earlier version of the play. Bibliography and chronology complete the presentation as one-stop shopping for an earnest acquaintance with Wilde’s charmer as social text.” — Frederick S. Roden, University of Connecticut

“Broadview’s Importance of Being Earnest carries on the press’s excellent series of texts for general readers and students alike. Samuel Lyndon Gladden presents the three-act text, as well as an appendix with important scenes and lines from the original four-act version. The volume includes many useful annotations and glosses, appendices with contextual information, illustrations, and extracts from letters and documents that will enhance understanding and interpretation of the play. The introduction places the play in up-to-date critical and biographical contexts, illuminating issues without closing down other approaches to making sense of Wilde’s carefully composed dramatic nonsense.” — Philip E. Smith, University of Pittsburgh

From the Publisher

"Broadview's Importance of Being Earnest carries on the press's excellent series of texts for general readers and students alike. Samuel Lyndon Gladden presents the three-act text, as well as an appendix with important scenes and lines from the original four-act version. The volume includes many useful annotations and glosses, appendices with contextual information, illustrations, and extracts from letters and documents that will enhance understanding and interpretation of the play. The introduction places the play in up-to-date critical and biographical contexts, illuminating issues without closing down other approaches to making sense of Wilde's carefully composed dramatic nonsense."

Philip E. Smith University of Pittsburgh

"Samuel Lyndon Gladden's edition of The Importance of Being Earnest continues Broadview Press's proven tradition of excellence. This book will serve the undergraduate, general reader, and scholar. Gladden's introduction is provocative, and the ancillary materials are especially welcome. Gladden balances familiar with unexpected contemporary works – from Gilbert and Sullivan to Ada Leverson, playbills to reviews, poems to pictures, conduct manuals to dandy tracts – plus excerpts of Wilde's writings, including an earlier version of the play. Bibliography and chronology complete the presentation as one-stop shopping for an earnest acquaintance with Wilde's charmer as social text."

Frederick S. Roden University of Connecticut

Wilde's famous and hilarious send-up of Victorian courtship is beautifully realized by L.A. Theatre Works' talented cast. The dialogue is quick and snappy—exactly as it should be. Listeners will still be giggling at one joke as the next sails by. James Marsters plays the clever devil-may-care Jack (sometimes Earnest) with energy and wit, and Matthew Wolf's Algernon (also sometimes Earnest) is spot-on—neurotic, loving, and yearning to be both adventurous and responsible. A special mention goes to Charles Busch for his laugh-out-loud portrayal of Lady Bracknell. The acting and staging are clear and effective, and while nothing can replace actually watching Wilde's play in person, this production is a close second to the live event. A.H.A. 2011 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2010 - AudioFile