Lady Windermere's Fan

About

Wilde's 1892 breakthrough — his first major stage success and the work that established him as the dominant comic playwright of his era — follows Lady Windermere's discovery that her husband may be paying court to the disreputable Mrs. Erlynne, and her almost-catastrophic decision to elope with another man. The play's twist — Mrs. Erlynne is Lady Windermere's long-lost mother, sacrificing her own reputation to save her daughter's — gives the comedy an unexpected emotional dimension. The epigrams flow as freely as in Earnest, but Lady Windermere's Fan has more sentimental machinery beneath them. It introduced Wilde's characteristic method: deploying the full arsenal of well-made play construction while constantly undercutting it with wit.