Lady Windermere's Fan. Oscar Wilde

      

      LADY

      WINDERMERE’S FAN

      A PLAY ABOUT

      A GOOD WOMAN

      By

      OSCAR WILDE

      First published in 1892

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To the Dear Memory of Robert Earl of Lytton. In Affection and Admiration

      Contents

       Oscar Wilde

       THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

       THE SCENES OF THE PLAY

       LONDON: ST. JAMES’S THEATRE

       FIRST ACT

       SECOND ACT

       THIRD ACT

       FOURTH ACT

      Oscar Wilde

      Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. His parents were successful Dublin intellectuals, and Wilde became fluent in French and German early in life. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and subsequently won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was heavily influenced by John Ruskin and Walter Pate. Wilde proved himself to be an outstanding classicist. After university, he moved to London and became involved with the fashionable cultural and social circles of the day. At the age of just 25 he was well-known as a wit and a dandy, and as a spokesman for aestheticism—an artistic movement that emphasized aesthetic values ahead of socio-political themes—he undertook a lecture tour to the United States in 1882, before eventually returning to London to try his hand at journalism. It was also around this time that he produced most of his well-known short fiction.

      In 1891, Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel. Reviewers criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusions, although it was popular nonetheless. From 1892, Wilde focussed on playwriting. In that year, he gained commercial and critical success with Lady Windermere's Fan, and followed it with the comedy A Woman of No Importance (1893) and An Ideal Husband (1895). Then came Wilde's most famous play, The Importance of Being Earnest – a farcical comedy which cemented his artistic reputation and is now seen as his masterpiece.

      In 1895, the Marquess of Queensbury, who objected to his son spending so much time with Wilde because of Wilde's flamboyant behaviour and reputation, publicly insulted him. In response, Wilde brought an unsuccessful slander suit against him. The result of this inability to prove slander was his own trial on charges of sodomy, and the revealing to the transfixed Victorian public of salacious details of Wilde's private life followed. Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years of hard labour.

      Wilde was released from prison in 1897, having suffered from a number of ailments and injuries. He left England the next day for the continent, to spend his last three years in penniless exile. He settled in Paris, and didn't write anymore, declaring “I can write, but have lost the joy of writing.” Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on in November of 1900, converting to Catholicism on his deathbed.

      THE PERSONS

      OF THE PLAY

      LORD WINDERMERE

      LORD DARLINGTON

      LORD AUGUSTUS LORTON

      MR. DUMBY

      MR. CECIL GRAHAM

      MR. HOPPER

      PARKER, BUTLER

      LADY WINDERMERE

      THE DUCHESS OF BERWICK

      LADY AGATHA CARLISLE

      LADY PLYMDALE

      LADY STUTFIELD

      LADY JEDBURGH

      MRS. COWPER-COWPER

      MRS. ERLYNNE

      ROSALIE, Maid

      THE SCENES

      OF THE PLAY

      ACT I., Morning-room in Lord Windermere’s house.

      ACT II., Drawing-room in Lord Windermere’s house.

      ACT III., Lord Darlington’s rooms.

      ACT IV., Same as Act I.

      TIME:, The Present.

      PLACE:, London.

      The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours, beginning on a Tuesday afternoon at five o’clock, and ending the next day at 1.30 p.m.

      LONDON:

      ST. JAMES’S THEATRE

      LESSEE AND MANAGER: Mr. George Alexander

      February 22nd, 1892.

      LORD WINDERMERE, Mr. George Alexander.

      LORD DARLINGTON, Mr. Nutcombe Gould.

      LORD AUGUSTUS LORTON, Mr. H. H. Vincent.

      MR. CECIL GRAHAM, Mr. Ben Webster.

      MR. DUMBY, Mr. Vane-Tempest.

      MR. HOPPER, Mr. Alfred Holles.

      PARKER (Butler), Mr. V. Sansbury.

      LADY WINDERMERE, Miss Lily Hanbury.

      THE DUCHESS OF BERWICK, Miss Fanny Coleman.

      LADY AGATHA CARLISLE, Miss Laura Graves.

      LADY PLYMDALE, Miss Granville.

      LADY JEDBURGH, Miss B. Page.

      LADY STUTFIELD, Miss Madge Girdlestone.

      MRS. COWPER-COWPER, Miss A. de Winton.

      MRS. ERLYNNE, Miss Marion Terry.

      ROSALIE (Maid), Miss Winifred Dolan.

      LADY

      WINDERMERE’S FAN

      A PLAY ABOUT A GOOD WOMAN