Oscar Wilde’s first major success on the stage, Lady Windermere’s Fan premiered in London in 1892 to sold-out fashionable crowds. The social comedy centers on a woman who has been cast out of and hopes to re-enter society but ultimately sacrifices herself to save her grown daughter’s dignity and social standing. Filled with some of Wilde’s best-known and wittiest epigrammatic sayings, the play’s exposure of upper-class hypocrisy is far deeper and more poignant than such funny writing ought to allow.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, known for his biting wit, defense of aesthetics, and defiance of social conventions. The author of celebrated comedies, including The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband, and the iconic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, at the height of his fame he was sentenced to two years’ hard labor for gross indecency with men. He died penniless in Paris three years after his release from prison. He ranks among the most celebrated writers in English literature.