The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Volume XI Plays 4: Vera; or The Nihilist and Lady Windermere's Fan

Volume IX of the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde includes his first performed play, Vera; or, The Nihilist, and his first West End success, Lady Windermere's Fan. It also includes two lengthy Introductions to the plays, commentaries, and contemporary Nihilist-themed works.

Format: Hardback
Length: 624 pages
Publication date: 06 August 2021
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Volume IX in the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde brings together Wilde's first performed play, Vera; or, The Nihilist, and his first West End success, Lady Windermere's Fan. Two texts are provided for each play: a reconstruction of the first performance text of each work, based on marked-up scripts that were used during rehearsals, and which are collated in the Textual Notes with all other extant versions (including manuscripts, typescripts, and, where relevant, authoritative acting editions); as well as, for Vera, a complete transcription of an early manuscript and manuscript fragment, and for Lady Windermere's Fan, a reproduction of the familiar 1893 Bodley Head reading text of the play. Also provided are two lengthy Introductions to the plays describing the history of their composition, staging, reception, and (where relevant) publication, and in which special attention is given to Wilde's relationships with the actor-managers who starred in and produced these works: Marie Prescott and George Alexander. Commentaries identify references, allusions, and possible source materials Wilde drew upon. A notable feature of the edition in this respect is the attention given to a range of contemporary Nihilist-themed works, fictional and non-fictional, to which Vera is compared, as well as to the intricate codes of contemporary etiquette, upon which much of the humor of Lady Windermere's Fan is reliant.

Weight: 894g
Dimension: 223 x 145 x 53 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780198870296