The Importance of Being Earnest

A new student edition of Wilde's most enduringly popular play with commentary and notes by Lucie Sutherland, offering a contemporary viewpoint on the play

After all, who has the right to cast a stone against one who has suffered? Cannot repentance wipe out an act of folly? Why should there be one law for me and another for women?

Wilde's 'trivial play for serious people', a sparkling comedy of manners, is the epitome of wit and style. This brilliantly constructed satire with its celebrated characters and much-quoted dialogue turns accepted ideas inside out and is generally regarded as Wilde's masterpiece.

This Methuen Drama Student Edition of the play includes commentary and notes by Lucie Sutherland, Assistant Professor in Drama at the University of Nottingham, UK, which investigate the play through a contemporary lens, bringing in the contributions from queer scholarship and discussions of recent productions of the play.