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A Woman of No Importance

by Oscar Wilde

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First published
1893
Pages
84
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2 h 3 min · 4 parts

  1. Act 1

    29:32

  2. Act 2

    37:11

  3. Act 3

    28:04

  4. Act 4

    28:51

A Woman of No Importance (1893) is a public domain work.

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About this book

A Woman of No Importance is the 1893 society comedy by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the second of the four West End comedies that made him the most successful playwright of the early 1890s. The play turns on Mrs Arbuthnot, a woman with a hidden past, whose grown son is offered a secretaryship by the brilliant and cynical Lord Illingworth, the man who long ago charmed and abandoned her. Around this melodramatic core Wilde arranges his most glittering country-house talk, with Lord Illingworth delivering some of the most famous epigrams in English drama. The play premiered at the Haymarket Theatre under Herbert Beerbohm Tree and consolidated the success of Lady Windermere's Fan. It remains in the standard repertory of English comedy.

From the opening pages

Lawn in front of the terrace at Hunstanton.

[SIR JOHN and LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT, MISS WORSLEY, on chairs under large yew tree.]

LADY CAROLINE. I believe this is the first English country house you have stayed at, Miss Worsley?

HESTER. Yes, Lady Caroline.

LADY CAROLINE. You have no country houses, I am told, in America?

HESTER. We have not many.

LADY CAROLINE. Have you any country? What we should call country?

HESTER. [ Smiling.] We have the largest country in the world, Lady Caroline.

They used to tell us at school that some of our states are as big as France and England put together.

LADY CAROLINE. Ah! you must find it very draughty, I should fancy. [ To SIR

JOHN.] John, you should have your muffler. What is the use of my always knitting mufflers for you if you won’t wear them?

SIR JOHN. I am quite warm, Caroline, I assure you.

LADY CAROLINE. I think not, John. Well, you couldn’t come to a more charming place than this, Miss Worsley, though the house is excessively damp, quite unpardonably damp, and dear Lady Hunstanton is sometimes a little lax about the people she asks down here. [ To SIR JOHN.] Jane mixes too much. Lord Illingworth, of course, is a man of high distinction. It is a privilege to meet him.

And that member of Parliament, Mr. Kettle—

SIR JOHN. Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.

LADY CAROLINE. He must be quite respectable. One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one’s life, which speaks volumes for a man, nowadays. But Mrs. Allonby is hardly a very suitable person.

HESTER. I dislike Mrs. Allonby. I dislike her more than I can say.

LADY CAROLINE. I am not sure, Miss Worsley, that foreigners like yourself should cultivate likes or dislikes about the people they are invited to meet.

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About the author

Oscar Wilde - BDeBooks
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish author, poet and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential dramatists in London in the early 1890s.

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Book facts

First published
1893
Reading time
About 110 minutes
Pages
84
Language
English
Genre
Drama
Formats
PDF, EPUB, Read online, Audiobook