Classic fiction

The Importance of Being Earnest

by Oscar Wilde

89 pages · First published 1895

Jack Worthing has invented a reckless brother named Ernest so he can escape his respectable country responsibilities, while his friend Algernon Moncrieff uses an imaginary invalid called Bunbury for similar purposes. Their deceptions collide when both men pursue women who are unusually determined to marry someone named Ernest. Handbags, mistaken identity, cucumber sandwiches, and formidable Lady Bracknell propel the increasingly absurd revelations. Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners satirizes Victorian respectability, marriage, class, and earnestness itself through epigrams and a plot in which nearly everyone treats social performance as more important than truth.