Two young men juggle invented alter egos named Ernest to court the women they love, amid mistaken identity and a fearsome aunt. Wilde's sparkling comedy of manners and epigram.
Books that mention The Importance of Being Earnest (6)
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl: “featuring such plays as Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Shaw, 1894), The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde, 1895)”
Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens: “I shall play you my personal tape of The Importance of Being Earnest.”
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom: “Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World”
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon: “a friend of Tracy Bacon, whose first work in New York had been with the Mercury Theatre, playing the role of Algernon in Welles’s radio production of The Importance of Being Earnest.”
The Art of Fiction by Ayn Rand: “Henry is a benevolent humorist, as is Oscar Wilde in many of his plays, particularly The Importance of Being Earnest.”
On Literature by Umberto Eco: “quoted directly for its aphorisms”