This book provides commentary notes alongside the play text of Wilde'sfirst successful society comedy of late Victorian society and is anaccount of the play's historical, social and theatrical context.

The Sunday Times reported that on the first night of Lady Windermere'sFan (1892), Wilde appeared on stage after the final curtain call andtold the audience how pleased he was that they evidently liked thepiece as much as he did himself. The play brought him wealth andcemented his reputation for brilliant wit and devil-may-care conduct.It dramatises middle-class Victorian hypocrisy while arguing that onedoes well to keep a nice balance between honesty and concealment: LadyWindermere, suspecting her husband to have an affair with theexperienced Mrs Erlynne, decides to leave him for the debonair LordDarlington. In circumstances highly compromising for both, Mrs Erlynnesacrifices her reputation for Lady Windermere - an act of maternallove, for it turns out that she is Lady Windermere's mother and hasbeen blackmailing Windermere to keep quiet about it. Lady Windermereremains innocent of the truth and her mother marries to live abroad.