Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
A Woman of No Importance - cover

A Woman of No Importance

Oscar Wilde

Publisher: Wilde House

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre. Like Wilde's other society plays, it satirizes English upper class society. It has been performed on stages in Europe and North America since his death in 1900.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish author, playwright and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.

At the height of his fame and success, while his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), was still on stage in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry prosecuted for libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The charge carried a penalty of up to two years in prison. The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency with other men. After two more trials he was convicted and imprisoned for two years' hard labour. In 1897, in prison, he wrote De Profundis, which was published in 1905, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of 46.
Available since: 02/23/2018.

Other books that might interest you

  • A Tramp Abroad - cover

    A Tramp Abroad

    Mark Twain

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    In A Tramp Abroad, the ever adventurous Mark Twain brings his wit and creativity to his travels in Europe. Twain takes fictional liberty, turning his travels into an entertaining journey as he visits many of the countries of Central Europe. Listeners are sure to be delighted and humored as they enjoy what is considered by many to be one of Mark Twain's best works.An EChristian, Inc. production.
    Show book
  • The Phantom of the Opera - cover

    The Phantom of the Opera

    Gaston Leroux

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    "The Phantom of the Opera" is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, first published as a serialized work in 1909-1910. The story is a romantic thriller that revolves around a mysterious, disfigured musical genius known as the Phantom, who lives beneath the Paris Opera House. He falls in love with Christine, a beautiful young soprano, and becomes obsessed with her, leading to a dramatic series of events that include kidnapping and murder. The novel has been adapted into numerous films, plays, and, most famously, a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber
    Show book
  • Gulliver’s Travels (Legend Classics) - cover

    Gulliver’s Travels (Legend...

    Jonathan Swift

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    “Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.” 
As a survivor of a shipwreck, Lemuel Gulliver encounters some entirely absurd things – at first, he is in the land of Lilliputians, the tiny men; but later he ventures to the land of the giants. The tale continues to oscillate between the extremes as he meets immensely wise and scientifically aware people before being faced with excessive self-preoccupation and ignorance. Whatever that societal order, Gulliver consistently is a witness to the abuse of power. The satire often overemphasises the contraries in order to accentuate our individual and societal flaws and proneness to being corrupt and biased. In such a distinct way it rebukes human narrow-mindedness and accentuates our subjectivity. 
The novel’s multivalence has made it a celebrated children’s bedtime read – in particular, the first book – as well as a treasury of satirical metaphors and allusions that expose human and societal flaws in general and those of the English nobility in particular. The novel is an answer to Robinson Crusoe – it mocks Defoe’s protagonist’s too-good-to-be-true human aptness and reason. While some might find Swift’s modus operandi misanthropic, others will see him as a pragmatist who exemplifies how the excesses and polarities are detrimental and yet inescapable. Silly and bizarre, thought-provoking and alarming, this work is meant to be read and re-read as equally a jolly story and a philosophical or political collage of insights. 
The Legend Classics series:Around the World in Eighty DaysThe Adventures of Huckleberry FinnThe Importance of Being EarnestAlice's Adventures in WonderlandThe MetamorphosisThe Railway ChildrenThe Hound of the BaskervillesFrankensteinWuthering HeightsThree Men in a BoatThe Time MachineLittle WomenAnne of Green GablesThe Jungle BookThe Yellow Wallpaper and Other StoriesDraculaA Study in ScarletLeaves of GrassThe Secret GardenThe War of the WorldsA Christmas CarolStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeHeart of DarknessThe Scarlet LetterThis Side of ParadiseOliver TwistThe Picture of Dorian GrayTreasure IslandThe Turn of the ScrewThe Adventures of Tom SawyerEmmaThe TrialA Selection of Short Stories by Edgar Allan PoeGrimm Fairy TalesThe AwakeningMrs DallowayGulliver’s TravelsThe Castle of OtrantoSilas MarnerHard Times
    Show book
  • Michael Strogoff - cover

    Michael Strogoff

    Jules Verne

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    A courier of the Czar must be dispatched to warn the Governor-General of Sibera at once: Ivan Ogareff has allied himself with the fierce and ambitious Feofar-Khan. The Tartar chiefs are pouring their men into Siberia and fomenting rebellion. Should Ivan Ogareff and his allies succeed, the Siberian provinces will be wrested away from Russian control.No man is more capable of handling such a dangerous mission than Michael Strogoff. A native of Siberia, he knows the people and their languages, the challenging terrain, and how to survive the harsh winters. His great strength and courage are also matched by a kind and generous heart. Hunger, fatigue, capture, torture-nothing except death will stop him from completing his mission.
    Show book
  • Mansfield Park - cover

    Mansfield Park

    Jane Austen

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Taken from the poverty of her parent's home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawfords arrive in the neighborhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work, with its quiet subtle examination of social position and moral integrity. 
 
Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpreted, critiqued, and commented upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security.
    Show book
  • Antony and Cleopatra - cover

    Antony and Cleopatra

    William Shakespeare

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    William Shakespeare’s great Roman tragedy of adultery amid political conflict is now available in audiobook format.Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes a major event in world history: the founding of the Roman Empire.  Mark Antony is part of the ruling triumvirate of Rome and at the outset of the play he is living in Egypt engaged in an affair with the beautiful Egyptian Queen, Cleopatra. When the word that his wife has died and that Pompey is raising an army to challenge the authority of the triumvirate, Mark Antony returns to Rome to help manage the situation. "Antony and Cleopatra" is one of Shakespeare's great historical dramas.
    Show book