Product Description

Lady Windermere's Fan is a book written by Oscar Wilde. It is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. This great novel will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, Lady Windermere's Fan is required reading for various courses and curriculums. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless pieces of classic literature, this gem by Oscar Wilde is highly recommended. Published by Quill Pen Classics and beautifully produced, Lady Windermere's Fan would make an ideal gift and it should be a part of everyone's personal library.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1404119 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-21
• Binding: Paperback
• 68 pages

From Library Journal
Dover goes Wilde with these two fine additions to its line of bargain titles. Lady Windermere is a typical Wilde farce; the latter volume is simply a collection of his best lines.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Comedy of manners in four acts by Oscar Wilde, performed in 1892 and published the following year. Set in London, the play's action is put in motion by Lady Windermere's jealousy over her husband's interest in Mrs. Erlynne, a beautiful older woman with a mysterious past. Unknown to Lady Windermere, Mrs. Erlynne is really her divorced mother who, for the past 20 years, has been presumed dead. Lord Windermere is merely hoping to ease the older woman's reentrance into society, which she attempts under a pseudonym. In a fit of pique, Lady Windermere goes to the rooms of her ardent admirer, Lord Darlington. Mrs. Erlynne follows closely, saving her daughter from scandal by an act of generosity that ruins her own chances. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

About the Author
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. After his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, he tried to establish himself as a writer, but with little initial success. However, his three volumes of short fiction, The Happy Prince (1888), Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (1891) and A House of Pomegranates (1891), together with his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), gradually won him a reputation as a modern writer with an original talent, a reputation confirmed and enhanced by the phenomenal success of his Society Comedies -- Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, all performed on the West End stage between 1892 and 1895. Success, however, was short-lived. In 1891 Wilde had met and fallen in love with Lord Alfred Douglas. In 1895, when his success as a dramatist was at its height, Wilde brought an unsuccessful libel action against Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde lost the case and two trials later was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for acts of gross indecency. As a result of this experience he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He was released from prison in 1897 and went into an immediate self-imposed exile on the Continent. He died in Paris in ignominy in 1900.

Customer Reviews

How can women survive in victorian society
Oscar Wilde entirely dedicates this play to the exploration of the way a woman can be saved from destruction in this society of appearances. A woman was the victim of an imbroglio in the past and abandoned her daughter. This woman comes back and the daughter ignores her relation to her. She is brought back into societry by the daughter's husband who knows the truth but does not want his wife to know it. But there is some kind of malediction that flies over the heads of these women. The daughter nearly does the same mistake as her mother but she is saved by her mother who accepts to be tainted in her daughter's place. Bus Oscar Wilde must think there is some kind of reward for a good deed and all is well that ends well, and this play has a happy ending. In spite of all the melodramatic sentimentalese atmosphere, Oscar Wilde definitely explores in this play the great disadvantage of a woman in society. Men can do nearly all they want. Women are extremely limited and have to walk a very straight and narrow line. Oscar Wilde seems to be ahead of his time as for the fate of women: he seems to aspire for real equality for them, though he shows in all possible ways that this is impossible in his society.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan

Wildely Entertaining
My first experience reading Oscar Wilde... and certainly not my last.

Wilde's sardonic wit and ineffable satire had me enchanted from page one. Wilde writes with devastatingly appealing witticisms, and with a style and cleverness matched by few other authors. It is said that he is one of the more oft-quoted authors in the English language, and I now understand why.

In addition to axioms and aphorisms of pure genius, the plot both captivates and surprises the reader. Lady Windermere discovers that her husband has been cheating on her, and a folly of misunderstandings and poor advice then unfolds; all the while satirizing society.

An Oscar Wilde Masterpiece
Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious. -- Oscar Wilde

The plot is about Lady Winderemere who goes from being a pillar of Victorian society to a woman of wandering morals. The woman who pulls her up is the one she suspected of being her husband's mistress. It's a comedy of society manners and morals with acerbic repartees and funny quips, in the great Oscar Wilde tradition.

Now, more than 100 years later, it still has a thought provoking depth which is very much applicable to today's society as well, although we view such adventures with less criticism and more understanding.

A wonderful comedy with all the wryness of Wilde.