The Importance of Being Earnest; Lady Windermere's Fan (The Heritage Press)

125; 114 pp. Bound in imitation of the dos-a-dos style binding (the reader can flip the book over to read the second of the two books included in the volume, though there is no middle board present as would be the case in an actual dos-a-dos). Introduction by Sir John Gielgud, color plates and woodcut illustrations by Tony Walton. Oscar Wilde was already one of the best-known literary figures in Britain when he was persuaded to turn his extraordinary talents to the theatre. Between 1891 and 1895 he produced a sequence of distinctive plays which spearheaded the dramatic renaissance of the 1890s and retain their power today. This collection offers newly edited texts of Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Salome, An Ideal Husband, and, arguably the greatest farcical comedy in English, The Importance of Being Earnest.