Lady Windermere's Fan - Softcover

Wilde, Hunter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140621733 ISBN 13: 9780140621730

Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited (UK), 2000

Synopsis

Beautiful, aristocratic, an adored wife and young mother, Lady Windermere is 'a fascinating puritan' whose severe moral code leads her to the brink of social suicide. The only one who can save her is the mysterious Mrs Erlynne whose scandalous relationship with Lord Windermere has prompted her fatal impulse. And Mrs Erlynne has a secret - a secret Lady Windermere must never know if she is to retain her peace of mind.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

The irreverent satire that launched Wilde's succession of classical comedies. A Lord, his wife, her admirer and an infamous blackmailer converge in this delicious comic feast of scandal. A divinely funny comedy of good girls, bad husbands and the moral hypocrisy of British high society in the late nineteenth century.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring:

Gina Field as Lady Agatha Carlisle

Judy Geeson as Lady Plymdale

Joanna Going as Lady Windermere

Arthur Hanket as Mr. Cecil Graham

Lisa Harrow as Mrs. Erlynne

Dominic Keating as Mr. Hopper

Miriam Margolyes as The Duchess of Berwick

Roger Rees as Lord Windermere

Eric Stoltz as Lord Darlington

James Warwick as Lord Augustus Lorton

Tom Wheatley as Parker

Directed by Michael Hackett. Recorded before a live audience at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited (UK)
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0140621733
• ISBN 13: 9780140621730
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80