Publisher Description
This is one of the great recordings of a great play. John Gielgud stars as Earnest and Edith Evans gives her indomitable performance as Lady Bracknell in this classic radio recording from 1951.
Performance styles may have changed, but this is an unmatched production bearing all the hallmarks of outstanding audio drama featuring some of the finest actors of the 20th century.
Also included are two collections of poetry readings by John Gielgud and Edith Evans.
Download and start listening now!
"This is a highly amusing play to read but it is even better when heard read aloud, on the stage or dramatised on television or film. It is chock full of witty one liners including the famous handbag scene and countless of other very, witty, barbed lines of dialogue from the master of the form that was Oscar Wilde. I was quite good to read but it is entirely another thing to see it acted out. I have only really seen the film version with Rupert Everett and Colin Firth but and was one of the funniest films that I have ever seen. I would love to one day see the play in the medium that it was created for as I imagine that would be a very enjoyable experience."
—
Adam (4 out of 5 stars)
About Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was born in Dublin. He won scholarships to both Trinity College, Dublin, and Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1875, he began publishing poetry in literary magazines, and in 1878, he won the coveted Newdigate Prize for English poetry. He had a reputation as a flamboyant wit and man-about-town. After his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, he tried to establish himself as a writer, but with little initial success. However, his three volumes of short fiction, The Happy Prince, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, and A House of Pomegranates, together with his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, gradually won him a reputation as a modern writer with an original talent. That reputation was confirmed and enhanced by the phenomenal success of his society comedies: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, all performed on London’s West End stage between 1892 and 1895. In 1895, he was convicted of engaging in homosexual acts, which were then illegal, and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor. He soon declared bankruptcy, and his property was auctioned off. In 1896, he lost legal custody of his children. When his mother died that same year, his wife Constance visited him at the jail to bring him the news. It was the last time they saw each other. In the years after his release, his health deteriorated. In November 1900, he died in Paris at the age of forty-six.