An Ideal Husband

Sir Robert Chiltern is a rising star of British politics, admired for his integrity and married to a wife who worships that reputation. Then Mrs Cheveley arrives at his London townhouse with a letter proving his fortune was built on a single act of corruption years earlier. Oscar Wilde’s 1895 comedy sets private guilt against public virtue, letting his dandy hero Lord Goring puncture Victorian self-righteousness with some of the sharpest lines Wilde ever wrote. Beneath the wit runs a real argument about forgiveness, and about whether we should demand perfection from the people we love. The play was one of his greatest stage successes, staged only months before scandal ended his career. Read it free as a PDF or EPUB edition.