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    Lady Windermere's Fan
    Lady Windermere's Fan
    Lady Windermere's Fan
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Lady Windermere's Fan

    By Oscar Wilde

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    About this ebook

    Classic play.According to Wikipedia: "Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 - 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and author of short stories. Known for his barbed wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. As the result of a famous trial, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years of hard labour after being convicted of the offence of 'gross indecency.'"
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeltzer Books
    Release dateMar 1, 2018
    ISBN9781455358038
    Author

    Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He studied at Trinity College Dublin and then at Magdalen College Oxford where he started the cult of 'Aestheticism', which involves making an art of life. Following his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, he published several books of stories ostensibly for children and one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). Wilde's first success as a playwright was with Lady Windemere's Fan in 1892. He followed this up with A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, all performed on the London stage between 1892 and 1895. However Wilde's homosexual relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas was exposed by the young man's father, the Marquis of Queensbury. Wilde brought a libel suit against Queensbury but lost and was sentenced to two year's imprisonment. He was released in 1897 and fled to France where he died a broken man in 1900.

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    Reviews for Lady Windermere's Fan

    4/5

    332 ratings15 reviews

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    • 2/5
      This was Oscar Wilde's first success theatrically. I'm not usually a fan of comedies-- this one is no exception. The writing, although some parts of it were descriptive and dream-like, were generally lacklustre and unintriguing. I didn't feel connected to the characters in the least and the whole thing felt flat. I don't recommend this one.
    • 3/5
      3.5***

      Lady Margaret Windermere has just come of age and is planning a birthday ball. A bachelor friend, Lord Darlington comes to call and she shows him the fan her husband has given her. The Duchess of Berwick arrives and tells Lady Windermere about the gossip that Lord Windermere is seeing a Mrs Erlynne on the side, and giving her large sums of money. Lady Windermere defends her husband against such malicious rumors, but as soon as the Duchess departs, Lady W searches her husband’s desk and finds a bank book with evidence that he HAS been supporting “that” woman!

      Of course, this only sets up the series of misunderstandings, innuendo, rumor, coincidences and awkward situations to come.

      Wilde was a master at writing this genre of play: a comedy of manners. The dialogue is witty and acerbic. The situations may be somewhat over-the-top, but they rely on the strict societal rules of Victorian England, when a married woman might receive a gentleman friend in her home, but would be publicly shamed and ruined if she was known to call on that same gentleman in his apartment. Neither would a divorced woman be received in any proper household.

      I’ve had the pleasure to see this play performed on the stage and it was a complete delight. Reading it definitely suffers in comparison to the full experience of watching it, though I had my memories of the performance to think on. Much as I love Oscar Wilde’s plays, I don’t think this is his best effort. I much prefer An Ideal Husband (which has a very similar plot twist) or The Importance of Being Earnest. Still, if you have a chance to see one of Wilde’s plays performed, don’t pass up the opportunity.
    • 4/5
      The best part is in the third act where the men are smart-mouthing and bouncing off each other. I like the cleverness of the conversation and the "Englishness" of the whole thing. It was a nice change for a play of this type to not finish in fairytale style.
    • 3/5
      A lot of well known quotes, but I think I'd enjoy it more if I saw it on stage.
    • 3/5
      I love Oscar Wilde, but this, his first play, is lacking a little of his trademark comedy and wit. It is a comedy, does have some witty lines, but some of the satire is lost today. Maybe this is just a play that works better on stage than page.
    • 4/5
      "I can resist everything except temptation.""Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.”After hearing L. A. Theatre Works production of “The Importance of Being Earnest” I had to try another one.Lady Windermere suspects her husband of having an affair with newcomer to town, Mrs. Erlynne - and then Windermere meet the woman the same evening at her birthday ball - but who is Mrs Erlynne? And should lady Windermere run away with the attractive Lord Darlington who is secretly in love with her?Lady Windermere’s Fan is typical Oscar Wilde - another comedy of manners in London upper class society with funny one-liners and witty conversation.The story is rather thin compared to “Earnest”, but I enjoyed every bit of it. Again I must praise L. A. Theatre Works for these audiobooks. I have already downloaded more of their productions at Audible.
    • 5/5
      I usually find Oscar Wilde's plays to be written in a kind of gay code so that they look like one thing on the surface, but underneath are about the lives of queer people in Edwardian England. On the surface Lady Windermere's Fan looks like the story of a happily married couple whose life together is almost destroyed by a grasping yet loving woman. But it's really about having to live with secrets that, if known, would destroy your standing in middle-class Victorian society.
    • 4/5
      A well-written coming of age tale. Witty repartee, a young wife's coming of age, and a mother's sacrifice combine for a touching drama. Wilde makes a clear statement about the impossible standards human beings believe they should be able to live up to.
    • 3/5
      This play wasn't what I expected. I think I was expecting something like The Importance of Being Earnest, which is such a light and fluffy bit of fun. This one wasn't like that. There were still some very funny lines, like the familiar "I can resist everything except temptation," but the subject was more serious and the funny lines were just thrown in around the action.Lady Windermere has only been married 2 years. She and her husband married as a love match. But now gossip has linked her husband with an older woman. Lady Windermere can't forgive or listen to her husband's attempt to explain that it's not really like that. A tangle of complicated situations that can't ever be explained follow, with mixed results. I might enjoy it more if I saw it onstage. As it is, it was fun reading, but nothing more.
    • 4/5
      “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” — Lord Darlington“Lady Windermere’s Fan” is Oscar Wilde’s first successful society comedy from 1892. Though it is not as popular as his other works, it showcased Wilde’s sharp wit with numerous quotable quotes. Written as an epigram that explores the ideas of good vs. bad, rather the good can have bad qualities, and if the bad can ever do good, we find Lady Windermere in the leading role, pitted against the suspected lover of her husband, Mrs. Erlynne. In twenty hours’ time, the truth about Mrs. Erlynne is revealed, the temptation of Lady Windermere is resolved, and the views of men and women in then society is debated by Lords and Ladies. Wilde loved this play so much that he notoriously announced during the Premiere, “Ladies and Gentlemen. I have enjoyed this evening immensely. The actors have given us a charming rendering of a delightful play, and your appreciation has been most intelligent. I congratulate you on the great success of your performance, which persuades me that you think almost as highly of the play as I do myself.”I read the book before seeing the play performed, and I read it again afterwards. With the right cast and production, the words come alive and sparkle with comedic gems. Though the main plot isn’t applicable in today’s time (thank goodness), the numerous zingers deliver laughs and are at times thought-provoking. The characters are not deeply explored, which is not surprising given the play is fifty-two pages with sixteen characters. The play itself felt a bit silly initially but likely because I couldn’t get it through my thick head that it’s a no-no for a woman to be at a man’s home alone in 1892. Read the play if you have a chance to also see it; it is so much better that way. 3.5 stars in literature form + 0.5 stars in production formQuotes/Zingers!On Good vs. Bad:Lord Darlington: “Oh, now-a-days so many conceited people go about society pretending to be good, that I think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to be bad. Besides, there is this to be said. If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.”Lord Darlington: “Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad.”On Temptation:Lord Darlington: “I couldn’t help it. I can resist everything except temptation.”On Being a Wife:Duchess of Berwick: “…Our husbands would really forget our existence if we didn’t nag at them from time to time, just to remind them that we have a perfect legal right to do so.”On Life:Lord Darlington: “Because I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.” On Men:Duchess of Berwick: “… Now I know that all men are monsters. The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well. A good cook does wonders…”On Aging:Cecil Graham: “…My father would talk morality after dinner. I told him he was old enough to know better. But my experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don’t know anything at all…”Dumby: “The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They have absolutely no respect for dyed hair.”On Marriage:Lady Windermere: “London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.”On Women:Humorous given the epigram of this play – Lady Plymdale: “…It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing…”Lord Augustus: “I prefer women with a past. They’re always so demmed amusing to talk to.”Cecil Graham: “Well, you’ll have lots of topics of conversation with her…” (referring to Mrs. Erlynne)On Gossip:Cecil Graham: “Oh, gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now I never moralize. A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain…”On Dating:Cecil Graham: “Now, my dear Tuppy, don’t be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don’t love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.”On Cynic vs. Sentimentalist:Cecil Graham: “What is a cynic?”Lord Darlington: “A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”Cecil Graham: “And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.”On Experience:Cecil Graham: “…Experience is a question of instinct about life. I have got it. Tuppy hasn’t. Experience is the name Tuppy gives to his mistakes….”Dumby: “Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes… Life would be very dull without them.”On Ideals vs. Realities:Mrs. Erlynne: “Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they are better.”On Living Life with Good and Evil:Lady Windermere: “…There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand. To shut one’s eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.”
    • 4/5
      {rereading Lady Windermere's Fan, Feb. 2016} I am altering my rating of this play from 4* to 4½* (see my print edition of "The Plays of Oscar Wilde" for review) -- I had forgotten how many wonderful lines there were in the dialogue of this play. These raise it up but I still don't think it is as good as my favorite, The Importance of Being Earnest so I can't give it 5*.While my opinion of the play itself has been increased by this reread, I found some of the cast of narrators were not great. Nobody was dreadful but Mr. Hopper in particular was poor and I found Lord Windermere spoke too slowly and deliberately. Mrs. Erlynne (voiced by Elizabeth Klett) was excellent.
    • 4/5
      Not Wilde's best. The plot was pretty lame - done before, and with lots of those rom-com situations where you think "This would all be cleared up if they'd just talk to each other like normal humans" - but it's still Wilde, so it's still plenty fun to read and has lots of things you probably would have put as your high school yearbook quote if you'd read it back then.

      "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

      "Experience is a question of instinct about life."

      "There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about."
    • 5/5
      This was a wonderfully visual play that kept me interested in not only the outcome, but the very nature of each of the characters. The condensed nature of the intense revelations is both abrasive, and welcome. It allowed for a fast and easily understood plot that thickened like churned milk.
    • 4/5
      Oh, like so many comedies of manners you do just end up wanting to bang all their heads together, but this is clever and witty and at one and the same time heartwarming, yet deeply depressing. Is Lady Windermere doomed to repeat the mistakes her mother made?
    • 2/5
      not as entertaining to read as his other play. Dragged a bit.

    Book preview

    Lady Windermere's Fan - Oscar Wilde

    LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN BY OSCAR WILDE

    published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

    established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

    Books by Oscar Wilde available from us:

    The Picture of Dorian Gray

    Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

    Shorter Prose Pieces

    A Critic in Pall Mall

    Essays and Lectures

    Intentions

    The Soul of Man

    Miscellanies

    Reviews

    Selected Prose

    The Happy Prince and Other Tales

    A House of Pomegranates

    The Duchess of Padua

    An Ideal Husband

    The Importance of Being Earnest

    Lady Windermere's Fan

    Salome

    Vera or The Nihilists

    A Woman of No Importance

    The Ballad of Reading Gaol

    Charmides and Other Poems

    feedback welcome: info@samizdat.com

    visit us at samizdat.com

    THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

    ACT I.    Morning-room in Lord Windermere's house.

    ACT II.   Drawing-room in Lord Windermere's house.

    ACT III.  Lord Darlington's rooms.

    ACT IV.   Morning-room in Lord Windermere's house.

    THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

    Lord Windermere

    Lord Darlington

    Lord Augustus Lorton

    Mr. Dumby

    Mr. Cecil Graham

    Mr. Hopper

    Parker, Butler

    Lady Windermere

    The Duchess of Berwick

    Lady Agatha Carlisle

    Lady Plymdale

    Lady Stutfield

    Lady Jedburgh

    Mrs. Cowper-Cowper

    Mrs. Erlynne

    Rosalie, Maid

    TIME:     1892

    PLACE:    London

    The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours,  beginning on a Tuesday afternoon at five o'clock, and ending the  next day at 1.30 p.m.

    FIRST ACT

    SCENCE

    Morning-room of Lord Windermere's house in Carlton House Terrace.   Doors C. and R.  Bureau with books and papers R.  Sofa with small  tea-table L.  Window opening on to terrace L.  Table R. [C = Center, L = Left, R = Right]

    [LADY WINDERMERE is at table R., arranging roses in a blue bowl.]

    [Enter PARKER.]

    PARKER.  Is your ladyship at home this afternoon?

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Yes - who has called?

    PARKER.  Lord Darlington, my lady.

    LADY WINDERMERE.  [Hesitates for a moment.]  Show him up - and I'm  at home to any one who calls.

    PARKER.  Yes, my lady.

    [Exit C.]

    LADY WINDERMERE.  It's best for me to see him before to-night.  I'm  glad he's come.

    [Enter PARKER C.]

    PARKER.  Lord Darlington,

    [Enter LORD DARLINGTON C.]

    [Exit PARKER.]

    LORD DARLINGTON.  How do you do, Lady Windermere?

    LADY WINDERMERE.  How do you do, Lord Darlington?  No, I can't  shake hands with you.  My hands are all wet with these roses.   Aren't they lovely?  They came up from Selby this morning.

    LORD DARLINGTON.  They are quite perfect.  [Sees a fan lying on the  table.]  And what a wonderful fan!  May I look at it?

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Do.  Pretty, isn't it!  It's got my name on it,  and everything.  I have only just seen it myself.  It's my  husband's birthday present to me.  You know to-day is my birthday?

    LORD DARLINGTON.  No?  Is it really?

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Yes, I'm of age to-day.  Quite an important day  in my life, isn't it?  That is why I am giving this party tonight.   Do sit down.  [Still arranging flowers.]

    LORD DARLINGTON.  [Sitting down.]  I wish I had known it was your  birthday, Lady Windermere.  I would have covered the whole street  in front of your house with flowers for you to walk on.  They are  made for you.  [A short pause.]

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Lord Darlington, you annoyed me last night at the  Foreign Office.  I am afraid you are going to annoy me again.

    LORD DARLINGTON.  I, Lady Windermere?

    [Enter PARKER and FOOTMAN C., with tray and tea things.]

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Put it there, Parker.  That will do.  [Wipes her  hands with her pocket-handkerchief, goes to tea-table, and sits  down.]  Won't you come over, Lord Darlington?

    [Exit PARKER C.]

    LORD DARLINGTON.  [Takes chair and goes across L.C.]  I am quite  miserable, Lady Windermere.  You must tell me what I did.  [Sits  down at table L.]

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Well, you kept paying me elaborate compliments  the whole evening.

    LORD DARLINGTON.  [Smiling.]  Ah, nowadays we are all of us so hard  up, that the only pleasant things to pay ARE compliments.  They're  the only things we CAN pay.

    LADY WINDERMERE.  [Shaking her head.]  No, I am talking very  seriously.  You mustn't laugh, I am quite serious.  I don't like  compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing  a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that  he doesn't mean.

    LORD DARLINGTON.  Ah, but I did mean them.  [Takes tea which she  offers him.]

    LADY WINDERMERE.  [Gravely.]  I hope not.  I should be sorry to  have to quarrel with you, Lord Darlington.  I like you very much,  you know that.  But I shouldn't like you at all if I thought you  were what most other men are.  Believe me, you are better than most  other men, and I sometimes think you pretend to be worse.

    LORD DARLINGTON.  We all have our little vanities, Lady Windermere.

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Why do you make that your special one?  [Still  seated at table L.]

    LORD DARLINGTON.  [Still seated L.C.]  Oh, nowadays so many  conceited people go about Society pretending to be good, that I  think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to  be bad.  Besides, there is this to be said.  If you pretend to be  good, the world takes you very seriously.  If you pretend to be  bad, it doesn't.  Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Don't you WANT the world to take you seriously  then, Lord Darlington?

    LORD DARLINGTON.  No, not the world.  Who are the people the world  takes seriously?  All the dull people one can think of, from the  Bishops down to the bores.  I should like YOU to take me very  seriously, Lady Windermere, YOU more than any one else in life.

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Why - why me?

    LORD DARLINGTON.  [After a slight hesitation.]  Because I think we  might be great friends.  Let us be great friends.  You may want a  friend some day.

    LADY WINDERMERE.  Why do you say that?

    LORD DARLINGTON.  Oh! - we all want friends at times.

    LADY WINDERMERE.  I think we're very good friends already, Lord  Darlington.  We can

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