The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) FROM OUR EDITORS
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FROM THE PUBLISHER
Oscar Wilde’s legendary wit dazzles in The Importance of
Being Earnest, one of the greatest and most popular works of drama to
emerge from Victorian England. A light-hearted satire of the absurdity of
all forms and conventions, this comic masterpiece features an
unforgettable cast of characters who, as critic Max Beerbohm observed,
“speak a kind of beautiful nonsensethe language of high
comedy, twisted into fantasy.”
This collection also includes Oscar Wilde’s most famous
comedies, Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No
Importance, and An Ideal Husband, as well as his poetic
tragedy Saloméall written between 1891 and 1895,
Wilde’s most creative period. George Bernard Shaw said of Oscar
Wilde that he is “our most thorough playwright. He plays with
everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and
audience, with the whole theater.”
Kenneth Krauss received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He
teaches drama at the College of Saint Rose, where he also directs and
produces. His most recent book is The Drama of Fallen France,
on French theater under the German Occupation.
Features illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley