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!
All characters reduced
Lady Windermere's Fan - cover

Lady Windermere's Fan

Oscar Wilde

Publisher: CLXBX

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde is a dazzling comedy of manners that sparkles with wit, elegance, and razor-sharp social commentary. First performed in 1892, this celebrated stage play showcases Wilde at the height of his theatrical brilliance, blending humor and irony with a perceptive exploration of morality, reputation, and the complexities hidden beneath polite society.

Set within the refined drawing rooms of London's upper class, the story unfolds over the course of a single day and evening. Lady Windermere, young, beautiful, and firmly devoted to principles of virtue, becomes convinced that her husband is betraying her with a mysterious woman, Mrs. Erlynne. Hurt and outraged, she finds herself tempted to retaliate by accepting the attention of a charming admirer. What begins as suspicion soon spirals into emotional turmoil, misunderstandings, and a crisis that threatens to shatter lives and reputations.

At the center of the drama is the symbolic fan—a delicate yet powerful object that becomes entwined with secrets and moral choices. Through it, Wilde highlights the fragility of social standing and the thin line between virtue and scandal. As revelations emerge and truths are reconsidered, characters must confront the gap between appearance and reality.

Wilde's signature epigrams and sparkling dialogue drive the play's momentum. Each exchange brims with clever observations about marriage, gender expectations, hypocrisy, and the performative nature of high society. Beneath the glittering humor, however, lies a deeper emotional core. The play examines forgiveness, sacrifice, and the human capacity for compassion, challenging rigid moral judgments.

The character of Mrs. Erlynne stands out as one of Wilde's most compelling creations—enigmatic, poised, and far more complex than society assumes. Through her, the play questions conventional definitions of respectability and explores whether redemption is possible within a world governed by gossip and rigid codes of conduct.

Lady Windermere's Fan remains one of Wilde's most enduring works, beloved for its lively pacing, memorable characters, and timeless insights. It captures the spirit of the late Victorian era while speaking to universal themes that continue to resonate with modern audiences. Elegant yet provocative, lighthearted yet profound, this play is a masterful blend of entertainment and social critique.

With its brilliant humor and emotional depth, Lady Windermere's Fan invites readers and audiences alike to look beyond surface appearances—and to consider that sometimes, mercy may be wiser than judgment.
Available since: 02/22/2026.
Print length: 69 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • The Sun Also Rises - cover

    The Sun Also Rises

    Ernest Hemingway, Kate McAll

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A group of friends decamps from 1920’s Paris for the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain. Jake is in love with the aristocratic Bret Ashley, but Bret’s wandering eye lands on a young matador. In the week of drinking, bullfighting, and jealousy that follows, friendships will be upended and hopes for love dashed.   
     
    Recorded at The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood in April 2022. 
     
    Directed by Anna Lyse Erikson 
    Producing Director: Susan Albert Loewenberg 
     
    An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast recording starring: 
    Geoffrey Arend as Robert Cohn 
    Seamus Dever as Bill Gorton 
    Patrick Heusinger as Jake Barnes  
    Derrick Kemp as Pedro Romero  
    Rhian Rees as Lady Brett Ashley 
    Herbert Sigüenza as Montoya and others  
    André Sogliuzzo as Mike Campbell and the Count 
    Devon Sorvari as Frances and Georgette 
     
    Senior Producer: Anna Lyse Erikson 
    Prepared for Audio by Mark Holden for The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood 
    Sound Design by Charles Carroll with Austin Halterman 
    Recording Engineer and Mixer: Charles Carroll 
    Senior Radio Producer: Ronn Lipkin 
    Foley Artist: Jeff Gardner
    Show book
  • The Poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Renowned poet and painter who founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and influenced the Aesthetic movement - cover

    The Poetry of Dante Gabriel...

    Dante Gabriel Rossetti

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born on May 12th 1828 in London, England. 
    As a youth he was "self-possessed, articulate, passionate and charismatic" but also "ardent, poetic and feckless". Like his siblings, including famed poet Christina Georgina Rossetti, he most wished to be a poet but had a keen eye as a painter, having shown a great interest in Medieval Italian art.  
    Together with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais they developed and founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. It’s mission; to reform English art and return to the detail, intense colours, and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian and Flemish art.  
    The brotherhood's magazine, The Germ, was first published in 1850 with Rossetti contributing a poem, "The Blessed Damozel", and a story about a fictional Italian artist inspired by a vision of a woman who bids him combine the human and the divine in his art. 
    Rossetti first met his future wife, Elizabeth Siddal, a model, in 1849 who was later sitting for him and involved in an intense relationship.  By 1852 they withdrew from society; totally absorbed in each other. The lovers nicknamed each other; "Guggums" and "Dove".   
    In 1861, Rossetti, together with William Morris, became a founding partner in the decorative arts firm, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. Rossetti contributed designs for stained glass and other decorative objects. 
    Meanwhile his marriage to Lizzie was troubled.  The terrible hurt of Rossetti’s affairs with other women had caused her stress leading to depression and other illnesses. She now began to take, and become addicted to, laudanum. In 1861, Lizzie became pregnant but the resultant birth was a stillborn daughter.  Lizzie’s post-partum depression was followed by an overdose of laudanum the following year.  Rossetti was devastated and, at her funeral in Highgate Cemetery, he buried the bulk of his unpublished poems with her body. 
    Poetry and painting are closely entwined in Rossetti's work. He frequently wrote sonnets to accompany his pictures, while also creating art to illustrate poems such as "Goblin Market" by his sister. 
    His personal life was closely woven into his work, especially his relationships with his models and muses.  William Morris’s wife, Jane, regularly sat for him during the next few years, and it was said she "consumed and obsessed him in paint, poetry, and life".  
    During these years, Rossetti was prevailed upon by friends to exhume his poems from his wife's grave which he eventually did, collating and publishing them in 1870.  Their eroticism and sensuality caused much offence. One, "Nuptial Sleep", described a couple falling asleep after sex. It was part of the sonnet sequence The House of Life, a complex series tracing the physical and spiritual development of an intimate relationship.  Rossetti described the sonnet form as a "moment's monument" and these were his crowning literary achievement.  
    Toward the end of his life, he sank into a morbid state, shadowed by addiction to chloral hydrate and increasing mental instability. He spent his last years as a recluse at Cheyne Walk and died on Easter Sunday, April 9th, 1882. 
     This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialized imprint from Deadtree Publishing.  Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.
    Show book
  • Bend My Light - cover

    Bend My Light

    Alexander Gwyn

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Twenty-three poems. Three movements. One unflinching journey from the depths to the light. 
    Alexander Gwyn's Bend My Light arrives in audio for the first time — narrated by the poet himself, layered with music and ambient sound that move the listener through descent, search, and arrival. From addiction and rebirth, to the cosmic wonder of the universe, to the quiet grace of solitude — this collection speaks to anyone who has ever searched for meaning in the darkness and discovered light on the other side. 
    Listen slowly. They were written that way.
    Show book
  • And the World Spins Anyway - cover

    And the World Spins Anyway

    George Jones

    • 0
    • 1
    • 0
    This a love letter to real life, however it shows up; an antidote to the highlight reel that is social media, a tribute to the unfinished, the unfiltered, the uncertain.
    In this debut collection of poetry, stories and questionable choices, Georgie Jones, with her signature wit and warmth, explores the exquisite messiness of modern existence and makes the chaos feel, somehow, like home. She can't promise any answers, but she can make you feel a little less alone in not having them.
    Show book
  • Wild Seas Wilder Cities - A collection of environmental fiction poems and articles - cover

    Wild Seas Wilder Cities - A...

    Helen Salsbury, Richard...

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Wild Seas, Wilder Cities is a ‘wild-seeded’ collection of short stories, poems, memoirs and environmental articles from 49 unique contributors, all concerned with showing the positive side of our relationship with the earth. 
     
    Thanks to funding from Portsmouth Creates, this audiobook features 50 different voices from across the Portsmouth community and beyond. Our readers range from teenagers to those in their nineties, including experienced actors, writers and volunteers from the public. 
     
    The many writers, poets and performers in this audiobook have given their work freely, so all profits are donated to the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust for their Solent Seagrass Restoration Project. 
     
    Recorded at the award-winning Casemates Studios in Portsmouth. 
     
    Find out more at pensoftheearth.co.uk/audiobook 
     
    Reviews for the paperback: 
     
    ‘Calls to us in a rousing chorus of voices … a lyrical force for change.’ Nicola Chester, award winning author of On Gallows Down and Ghosts of the Farm. 
     
    ‘Bursting with inspiring and hopeful visions’ Carys Bray, author of A Song for Issy Bradley 
     
    ‘Mixing fact, fiction and poetry is such a good idea – we bear witness to the natural world in many ways, and the pieces come in all shapes and sizes, carrying messages of determination, love for nature, positive actions and the power of community.’ Sarah Jane Butler, author of Starling 
     
    ‘Full of love, enlightenment, practicality and poetry.’ Toby Litt, author of Patience 
     
    ‘A delightfully encouraging collection of writings on the ways we can help make the world wilder again, how we can change the narrative on climate change. Vibrant and alive, these are wonderful tales told of renaturing – of striving to support life in all its glorious forms on the earth, of restoring hope for the future.’ Dr James Canton, Director of Wild Writing, University of Essex
    Show book
  • Modern Poetry - Poems - cover

    Modern Poetry - Poems

    Diane Seuss

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Diane Seuss's signature voice—audacious in its honesty, virtuosic in its artistry, outsider in its attitude—has become one of the most original in contemporary poetry. Her latest collection takes its title, Modern Poetry, from the first textbook Seuss encountered as a child and the first poetry course she took in college, as an enrapt but ill-equipped student, one who felt poetry was beyond her reach. Many of the poems make use of the forms and terms of musical and poetic craft—ballad, fugue, aria, refrain, coda—and contend with the works of writers overrepresented in textbooks and anthologies and those too often underrepresented. Seuss provides a moving account of her picaresque years and their uncertainties, and in the process, she enters the realm between Modernism and Romanticism, between romance and objectivity, with Keats as ghost, lover, and interlocutor. 
     
     
     
    In poems of rangy curiosity, sharp humor, and illuminating self-scrutiny, Modern Poetry investigates our time's deep isolation and divisiveness and asks: What can poetry be now? Do poems still have the capacity to mean? "It seems wrong / to curl now within the confines / of a poem," Seuss writes. "You can't hide / from what you made / inside what you made." What she finds there, finally, is a surprising but unmistakable love.
    Show book