Books

First edition, one of 500 trade copies. The opening show of this satirical play on English manners was greeted with applause for the actors and boos for the playwright, causing Wilde to announce from behind a curtain, "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Mr Oscar Wilde is not in the house" (Ellmann, p. 381). Wilde's opulent production used "the market forces of luxury dressmaking to comment upon the worlds of his Haymarket patrons... Audiences in the stalls and boxes continued to be both flattered and vexed by the antics of their on-stage doubles, while viewers in the upper galleries enjoyed the additional spectacle of fashionable Society catching its likeness in Wilde's cunningly set mirrors" (Kaplan, p. 252). The play premiered at Haymarket Theatre on 19 April 1893 and ran until 16 August for 113 performances. An additional 50 large-paper copies were also issued. Small quarto. Original pink linen with gilt floral decorations by Charles Shannon, spine lettered in gilt, top edge trimmed, others uncut. Publisher's advertisement bookplate on front pastedown and their 16-page catalogue, dated March 1894, at end, all as called for. Welsh-language bookplate of John Evans on front free endpaper. Spine and edges faded, light wear to spine ends and corners, splits to inner hinges, mild toning and spots to contents. A very good copy. Mason 364. Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, 1988; Joel Kaplan, "Wilde on the Stage", The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, ed. by Peter Raby, 1997.

A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre. It is a testimony of Wilde's wit and his brand of dark comedy. It explores themes of English upper class society and highlights the double standards between men and women during the Victorian era.