Description

The Importance of Being Earnest, a Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Irish writer Oscar Wilde, the last of his four drawing-room plays, following Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893) and An Ideal Husband (1895). First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy depicting the tangled affairs of two young men about town who lead double lives to evade unwanted social obligations, both assuming the name Ernest while wooing the two young women of their affections. The play is one of Wilde's best-known works and, since its publication, has received more productions than any of his other writings.