Synopses & Reviews
Enduring Literature Illuminated by Practical Scholarship Wilde's classic comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest, and his other popular plays -- Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and Salome -- challenged comtemporary notions of sex and sensibility, class and cultural identity.
This Enriched Classic Edition includes:
• A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
• A chronology of the author's life and work
• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
• An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
• Detailed explanatory notes
• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
Series edited by Cynthia Brantley Johnson
Synopsis
Enduring Literature Illuminated by Practical Scholarship Wilde's classic comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest, and his other popular plays -- Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and Salome -- challenged comtemporary notions of sex and sensibility, class and cultural identity.
This Enriched Classic Edition includes:
• A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
• A chronology of the author's life and work
• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
• An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
• Detailed explanatory notes
• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
Series edited by Cynthia Brantley Johnson
Synopsis
Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.
Wilde’s classic comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest, a satire of Victorian social hypocrisy and considered Wilde’s greatest dramatic achievement, and his other popular plays—Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband, and Salome—challenged contemporary notions of sex and sensibility, class and cultural identity.
Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author’s personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research.
Read with confidence.
About the Author
Oscar Wilde was born on October 16, 1854, to the Irish nationalist and writer “Speranza” Wilde and the doctor William Wilde. After graduating from Oxford in 1878, Wilde moved to London, where he became notorious for his sharp wit and flamboyant style of dress.
Though he was publishing plays and poems throughout the 1880s, it wasn’t until the late 1880s and early 1890s that his work started to be received positively. In 1895, Oscar Wilde was tried for homosexuality and was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. Tragically, this downfall came at the height of his career, as his plays, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, were playing to full houses in London. He was greatly weakened by the privations of prison life, and moved to Paris after his sentence. Wilde died in a hotel room, either of syphilis or complications from ear surgery, in Paris, on November 30, 1900.
Table of Contents
Contents Introduction
Chronology of Oscar Wilde's Life and Work
Historical Context of The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Windermere's Fan
An Ideal Husband
Salomß
Notes
Interpretive Notes
Critical Excerpts
Questions for Discussion
Suggestions for the Interested Reader