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    Vera: or The Nihilists
    Vera: or The Nihilists
    Vera: or The Nihilists
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Vera: or The Nihilists

    By Oscar Wilde

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    About this ebook

    Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 in Dublin Ireland. The son of Dublin intellectuals Oscar proved himself an outstanding classicist at Dublin, then at Oxford. With his education complete Wilde moved to London and its fashionable cultural and social circles. With his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the most well-known personalities of his day. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1890 and he then moved on to writing for the stage with Salome in 1891. His society comedies produced enormous hits and turned him into one of the most successful writers of late Victorian London. Whilst his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, was on stage in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, prosecuted for libel. The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency. He was convicted and imprisoned for two years' hard labour. It was to break him. On release he left for France, There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol in 1898. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six sipping champagne a friend had brought with the line ‘Alas I am dying beyond my means’.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStage Door
    Release dateMar 1, 2017
    ISBN9781787374478
    Author

    Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 and died on the 30th November 1900. He was an Irish playwright, poet, and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Earnest.

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      Book preview

      Vera - Oscar Wilde

      Vera; or The Nihilists by Oscar Wilde

      Vera; or, The Nihilists is the first play written by Oscar Wilde. It is a melodramatic tragedy set in Russia. It was produced in the United Kingdom in 1880, and in New York in 1882, but folded after only a week.

      Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 in Dublin Ireland.  The son of Dublin intellectuals Oscar proved himself an outstanding classicist at Dublin, then at Oxford. With his education complete Wilde moved to London and its fashionable cultural and social circles.  With his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the most well-known personalities of his day.

      His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1890 and he then moved on to writing for the stage with Salome in 1891.  His society comedies produced enormous hits and turned him into one of the most successful writers of late Victorian London.

      Whilst his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, was on stage in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, prosecuted for libel.  The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency. He was convicted and imprisoned for two years' hard labour. It was to break him.

      On release he left for France, There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol in 1898.  He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six sipping champagne a friend had brought with the line ‘Alas I am dying beyond my means’.

      Index of Contents

      Persons in the Prologue

      Persons in the Play

      The Scenes of the Play

      PROLOGUE

      SCENE: A Russian Inn

      ACT I - SCENE: 99 Tchernavaya, Moscow

      ACT II - SCENE: Council Chamber in the Emperor's Palace

      ACT III - SCENE: Same and Business as Act I

      ACT IV - SCENE: Antechamber of the Czar's Private Room

      OSCAR WILDE – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

      OSCAR WILDE – A COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY

      Persons in the Prologue

      Peter Sabouroff (an Innkeeper)

      Vera Sabouroff (his Daughter)

      Michael Stroganoff (a Peasant)

      Dmitri Sabouroff

      Nicolas

      Colonel Kotemkin

      Persons in the Play

      Ivan the Czar

      Prince Paul Maraloffski (Prime Minister of Russia)

      Prince Petrovitch

      Count Rouvaloff

      Marquis de Poivrard

      Baron Raff

      General Kotemkin

      A Page

      Colonel of the Guard

      Nihilists

      Peter Tchernavitch, President of the Nihilists

      Michael

      Alexis Ivanacievitch, known as a Student of Medicine

      Professor Marfa

      Cera Sabouroff

      Soldiers, Conspirators, Etc.

      The Scenes of the Play

      Prologue

      Act I

      Act II

      Act III

      Act IV

      PROLOGUE

      SCENE: A Russian Inn. Large door opening on snowy landscape at back of stage.

      PETER SABOUROFF and MICHAEL.

      PETER (warming his hands at a stove)

      Has Vera not come back yet, Michael?

      MICHAEL

      No, Father Peter, not yet; 'tis a good three miles to the post office, and she has to milk the cows besides, and that dun one is a rare plaguey creature for a wench to handle.

      PETER

      Why didn't you go with her, you young fool? She'll never love you unless you are always at her heels; women like to be bothered.

      MICHAEL

      She says I bother her too much already, Father Peter, and I fear she'll never love me after all.

      PETER

      Tut, tut, boy, why shouldn't she? You're young, and wouldn't be ill-favoured either, had God or thy mother given thee another face. Aren't you one of Prince Maraloffski's gamekeepers; and haven't you got a good grass farm, and the best cow in the village? What more does a girl want?

      MICHAEL

      But Vera, Father Peter—

      PETER

      Vera, my lad, has got too many ideas; I don't think much of ideas myself; I've got on well enough in life without 'em; why shouldn't my children? There's Dmitri! Could have stayed here and kept the inn; many a young lad would have jumped at the offer in these hard times; but he, scatter-brained featherhead of a boy, must needs go off to Moscow to study the law! What does he want knowing about the law? Let a man do his duty, say I, and no one will trouble him.

      MICHAEL

      Ay! but, Father Peter, they say a good lawyer can break the law as often as he likes, and no one can say him nay. If a man knows the law he knows his duty.

      PETER

      True, Michael, if a man knows the law there is nothing illegal he cannot do when he likes: that is why folk become lawyers. That is about all they are good for; and there he stays, and has not written a line to us for four months now—a good son that, eh?

      MICHAEL

      Come, come, Father Peter, Dmitri's letters must have gone astray—perhaps the new postman can't read; he looks stupid enough, and Dmitri, why, he was the best fellow in the village. Do you remember how he shot the bear at the barn in the great winter?

      PETER

      Ay, it was a good shot; I never did a better myself.

      MICHAEL

      And as for dancing, he tired out three fiddlers Christmas come two years.

      PETER

      Ay, ay, he was a merry lad. It is the girl that has the seriousness—she goes about as solemn as a priest for days at a time.

      MICHAEL

      Vera is always thinking of others.

      PETER

      There is her mistake, boy. Let God and our little Father the Czar look to the world. It is none of my work to mend my neighbour's thatch. Why, last winter old Michael was frozen to death in his sleigh in the snowstorm, and his wife and children starved afterwards when the hard times came; but what business was it of mine? I didn't make the world. Let God and the Czar look to it. And then the blight came, and the black plague with it, and the priests couldn't bury the people fast enough, and they lay dead on the roads—men and women both. But what business was it of mine? I didn't make the world. Let God and the Czar look to it. Or two autumns ago, when the river overflowed on a sudden, and the children's school was carried away and drowned every girl and boy in it. I didn't make the world—let God or the Czar look to it.

      MICHAEL

      But, Father Peter—

      PETER

      No, no, boy; no man could live if he took his

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