The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde
"The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People" by Oscar Wilde is a play written in the late 19th century. This witty farce revolves around the theme of mistaken identities and the absurdities of Victorian society, focusing on the lives of two friends, John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who both assume fictitious personas to escape their societal obligations. The opening of the play establishes Algernon Moncrieff's opulent flat, where
he converses with his manservant Lane about the complexity of life and marriage. John Worthing, or "Ernest" in town, visits Algernon, expressing his purpose of proposing to Gwendolen Fairfax, Algernon's cousin. Through clever dialogue, the two men discuss their escapades and the concept of "Bunburying," a euphemism for creating a fictional identity to avoid responsibilities. This sets the stage for comedic misunderstandings and romantic entanglements that unfold as they both navigate their relationships with the women in their lives, Gwendolen and Cecily Cardew. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
| How to read | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844.html.images | 158 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844.epub3.images | 305 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844.epub.images | 303 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844.epub.noimages | 103 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844.kf8.images | 376 kB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844.kindle.images | 361 kB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844.txt.utf-8 | 139 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/844/pg844-h.zip | 306 kB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
About this eBook
| Author | Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900 |
|---|---|
| Title | The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People |
| Note | Wikipedia page about this book: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest |
| Credits | David Price |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 77.9 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PR: Language and Literatures: English literature |
| Subject | Comedy plays |
| Subject | England -- Drama |
| Subject | Identity (Psychology) -- Drama |
| Subject | Foundlings -- Drama |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 844 |
| Release Date | Mar 1, 1997 |
| Most Recently Updated | Nov 10, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 39241 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |