Importance of Being Earnest: A Norton Critical Edition

Oscar Wilde

Book cover for Importance of Being Earnest: A Norton Critical Edition
Image for variant 9780393421972
Book cover for Importance of Being Earnest: A Norton Critical Edition
Image for variant 9780393421972

Importance of Being Earnest: A Norton Critical Edition

Importance of Being Earnest: A Norton Critical Edition

Oscar Wilde

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Description

"Backgrounds" includes essays on Wilde and the 1890s by prominent cultural critics Karl Beckson, Sharon Marcus, and Michael Patrick Gillespie. "Early Reviews and Reactions" collects contemporary responses to The Importance of Being Earnest, including George Bernard Shaw's famous dissenting review and other commentary by H. G. Wells, Hamilton Fyfe, and William Archer.

"Essays in Criticism" includes seven diverse assessments--six of them new to the Second Edition--of Wilde and the play by E. H. Mikhail, Burkhard Niederhoff, Christopher S. Nassaar, Clifton Snider, Brigitte Bastiat, Eibhear Walshe, and Maneck H. Daruwala.

A chronology and selected bibliography are also included.

About the Author

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1856. His work includes The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest. He died in 1900.

Lucie Sutherland is Assistant Professor of Drama at the University of Nottingham, UK, and specialises in theatre and performance history and culture, specifically during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Critical Reviews

"Comes as close to perfection as any comedy I can think of." --Daily Telegraph

"Oscar Wilde's best-known work always had a claim to be the wittiest play in the English language." --Financial Times

"There is a real need for an updated, student-focused edition of this much taught play." --Jenny Stevens, author and series editor

"A fresh new edition of a theatrical favourite that fully evinces the contemporary appeal of Wildean theatre." --Chris Megson, Reader in Drama, Royal Holloway, University of London

"The play isn't going anywhere, and Lucie's expertise and proposed coverage look ideally suited to 'free up' the play from the grip of English Literature study and debate, and give something that Drama teachers can meaningfully engage with." --Matthew Nichols, Head of Drama at Manchester Grammar School, UK

Publishing Information

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Pub date: 2022-06-30
Length: 224 pages

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