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An Ideal Husband (Dover Thrift Editions)
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Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Dover Publications
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $2.50
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Dover Publications
Average Customer Rating:
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An Ideal Husband (Dover Thrift Editions) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 822.8
EAN: 9780486414232
ISBN: 048641423X
Label: Dover Publications
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 96
Publication Date: 2001-02-05
Publisher: Dover Publications
Studio: Dover Publications
Dewey Decimal Number: 822.8
EAN: 9780486414232
ISBN: 048641423X
Label: Dover Publications
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 96
Publication Date: 2001-02-05
Publisher: Dover Publications
Studio: Dover Publications
Editorial Review of An Ideal Husband (Dover Thrift Editions)
Wilde's scintillating drawing-room comedy revolves around a blackmail scheme that forces a married couple to reexamine their moral standards. A supporting cast of young lovers, society matrons, and a formidable femme fatale exchange sparkling repartee, keeping the action of the play at a lively pace.
Customer Reviews of An Ideal Husband (Dover Thrift Editions)
Customer Rating: 
Review Summary: Great easy Wilde's book
Review: This book is a great nineteenth century literature of one of mi favourites writers ever . It makes a great picture of the english bourgeoisie of the century combined with humour, sarcasm and moral content. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Gotta love Oscar Wilde
Review: I love Oscar Wilde's penchant for reversals. This play is terribly good fun but makes you think at the same time. I want to see the play acted out on stage now that I've read it!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Moral Clarity and Hedonic Flippancy
Review: As a dish for Oscar Wilde's inimitable and devilishly sweet locution, "An Ideal Husband" accentuates adequately. Like Roger Moore's 70's Bond flicks (before they became cartoons in the 80's), the play is saturated with the style, but very little of the substance from previous genius.
The excuse for, more than the theme of, the play is the unforgiving and insincere moral code among the social elite of fin de siècle London. Sir Robert Chiltern's otherwise ivory political career grew from selling a Cabinet secret to Stock Exchange speculator, Baron Arnheim, and Mrs. Cheveley, the since-deceased Baron's intimate, possesses the letter of documentation. All she asks for the letter's destruction is Sir Robert's official support of the Argentine Canal Company, in which she has invested and he knows to be a swindle. More than an end to his political career, he fears publication of the letter will end his marriage to his admirable, but morally unrelenting wife, Lady Chiltern. As if to release his audience from any pretension of seriousness, Wilde presents Society's dandy, in the form of Lord Goring, as both his foundation of moral clarity and hedonic flippancy. A string of one-liners and contrived plot twists later and we delight in what Wilde considers the proper end to any play or romantic relationship, a pleasing settlement.
"An Ideal Husband" is the Daily Star, not the Financial Times. Wilde is truly genius when seriousness is woven through his works, and particularly when his seriousness is personal; but, here he is entertaining nonetheless. If you're just introducing yourself to Oscar Wilde, I recommend including this work after a more flattering introduction, lest you mistake Wilde as merely entertaining.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Chiltern: "You prefer to be natural?"
Review: Chevely: "Sometimes. But it is such a difficult pose to keep up."
Perhaps not so well known as "The Importance of Being Earnest," this has all the same banter, manners, and sharp-eyed look at the crumbling edge of the upper crust in Vistorian England. It pleases the attentive listener at many levels. Considered only as a stream of one-liners and clever quips, it delivers all you could ask for.
But because it's Wilde, it's also a wild tirade against the mannered (sometimes ill-mannered) gentry. Behind that, it has a good deal to say about tolerance for the flaws of any fallible human - and Wilde could speak on human flaws with rare authority. And, like any truly great work, its examination of honesty (and dis-) reveals a good bit about today's world, a century later.
I'm not normally a reader of plays. I don't have that inner ear that brings words on the page to life. Wilde gives me some idea what that experience must be like, and I'm grateful for it.
//wiredweird
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: One of the great masterpieces of English Drama
Review: My very favourite of Oscar Wilde's plays. Choc-a-bloc with wit, and humorous repartee, it also is an intriguing story, and fascinating to see how it plays out. No wonder it is still popular 112 years after is first produced with recent productions on video/DVD doing very well.
Member of Parliament Lord Robert Chiltern is blackmailed by the wicked Mrs. Cheverly, with a secret from his youth, leading to a crisis in his life, and in his marriage to the virtuous Lady Chiltern. It is up to his friend, the delightfully foppish Lord Goring to help extricate him. All is well that ends well, but not after much interplay and intrigue.
Every word in this play is well measured out for one of the great masterpieces of English Drama.
Review Summary: Great easy Wilde's book
Review: This book is a great nineteenth century literature of one of mi favourites writers ever . It makes a great picture of the english bourgeoisie of the century combined with humour, sarcasm and moral content. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Gotta love Oscar Wilde
Review: I love Oscar Wilde's penchant for reversals. This play is terribly good fun but makes you think at the same time. I want to see the play acted out on stage now that I've read it!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Moral Clarity and Hedonic Flippancy
Review: As a dish for Oscar Wilde's inimitable and devilishly sweet locution, "An Ideal Husband" accentuates adequately. Like Roger Moore's 70's Bond flicks (before they became cartoons in the 80's), the play is saturated with the style, but very little of the substance from previous genius.
The excuse for, more than the theme of, the play is the unforgiving and insincere moral code among the social elite of fin de siècle London. Sir Robert Chiltern's otherwise ivory political career grew from selling a Cabinet secret to Stock Exchange speculator, Baron Arnheim, and Mrs. Cheveley, the since-deceased Baron's intimate, possesses the letter of documentation. All she asks for the letter's destruction is Sir Robert's official support of the Argentine Canal Company, in which she has invested and he knows to be a swindle. More than an end to his political career, he fears publication of the letter will end his marriage to his admirable, but morally unrelenting wife, Lady Chiltern. As if to release his audience from any pretension of seriousness, Wilde presents Society's dandy, in the form of Lord Goring, as both his foundation of moral clarity and hedonic flippancy. A string of one-liners and contrived plot twists later and we delight in what Wilde considers the proper end to any play or romantic relationship, a pleasing settlement.
"An Ideal Husband" is the Daily Star, not the Financial Times. Wilde is truly genius when seriousness is woven through his works, and particularly when his seriousness is personal; but, here he is entertaining nonetheless. If you're just introducing yourself to Oscar Wilde, I recommend including this work after a more flattering introduction, lest you mistake Wilde as merely entertaining.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Chiltern: "You prefer to be natural?"
Review: Chevely: "Sometimes. But it is such a difficult pose to keep up."
Perhaps not so well known as "The Importance of Being Earnest," this has all the same banter, manners, and sharp-eyed look at the crumbling edge of the upper crust in Vistorian England. It pleases the attentive listener at many levels. Considered only as a stream of one-liners and clever quips, it delivers all you could ask for.
But because it's Wilde, it's also a wild tirade against the mannered (sometimes ill-mannered) gentry. Behind that, it has a good deal to say about tolerance for the flaws of any fallible human - and Wilde could speak on human flaws with rare authority. And, like any truly great work, its examination of honesty (and dis-) reveals a good bit about today's world, a century later.
I'm not normally a reader of plays. I don't have that inner ear that brings words on the page to life. Wilde gives me some idea what that experience must be like, and I'm grateful for it.
//wiredweird
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: One of the great masterpieces of English Drama
Review: My very favourite of Oscar Wilde's plays. Choc-a-bloc with wit, and humorous repartee, it also is an intriguing story, and fascinating to see how it plays out. No wonder it is still popular 112 years after is first produced with recent productions on video/DVD doing very well.
Member of Parliament Lord Robert Chiltern is blackmailed by the wicked Mrs. Cheverly, with a secret from his youth, leading to a crisis in his life, and in his marriage to the virtuous Lady Chiltern. It is up to his friend, the delightfully foppish Lord Goring to help extricate him. All is well that ends well, but not after much interplay and intrigue.
Every word in this play is well measured out for one of the great masterpieces of English Drama.