Fiction & other works · 1892 · play

Lady Windermere's Fan

by Oscar Wilde

Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four-act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first performed on Saturday, 20 February 1892, at the St James's Theatre in London. The story concerns Lady Windermere, who suspects that her husband is having an affair with another woman; she confronts him with it. Although he denies it, he invites the other woman, Mrs Erlynne, to his wife's birthday ball. Angered by her husband's supposed unfaithfulness, Lady Windermere decides to leave her husband for Lord Darlington, who has recently confessed his love for her. After discovering what has transpired, Mrs Erlynne follows Lady Windermere and attempts to persuade her to return to her husband and in the course of this, Mrs Erlynne lets herself be discovered in a compromising position at Lord Darlington's so Lady Windermere has the opportunity to leave without being noticed by Lord Windermere. It is then revealed that Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere's mother, who abandoned her family twenty years earlier. Mrs Erlynne sacrifices her reputation to save her daughter's marriage. By the summer of 1891 Wilde had already written two plays; Vera; or, The Nihilists and The Duchess of Padua had...

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