A Serious Comedy for Trivial People, an early manuscript draft of The Importance of Being Earnest

This notebook is the earliest draft of The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People (1895), Wilde’s final and most acclaimed play. A farcical critique of Victorian society, it revolves around two friends’ use fictitious identities to pursue their respective romantic interests. Shown here is the scene that introduces the cigarette case that ultimately exposes the protagonists’ ruse. It also includes an early version of one of Wilde’s timeless epigrams: “More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read,” drafted here as: “One should read everything. That is the basis of modern culture.”