书名：The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays 不可儿戏及其他王尔德戏剧
难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数1390L
作者：Oscar Wilde奥斯卡·王尔德
出版社名称：Signet Classics
出版时间：2012
语种：英文 
ISBN：9780451531896
商品尺寸：10.6 x1.5 x 17.3 cm
包装：简装
页数：240 （以实物为准）

The Importance of Being Earnest《不可儿戏》是王尔德经典的戏剧作品，被誉为英国现代喜剧的奠基之作，王尔德的名言大半是从这部戏说出来的。在这部戏中，王尔德的观点新颖，风格鲜明，在创作上运用丰美的辞藻与华丽的修辞，以绝妙的想象力融入极富于音乐性的文句，并将唯美主义和现实主义的社会批评倾向巧妙结合，讽刺社会，映射人心。可以说，这部喜剧作品非常能体现王尔德的才华读来琅琅上口，亦庄亦谐，百余年来，一直深受读者喜爱，也无数次被搬上舞台，并两次被拍成电影上映。本书它们同样都是传世近百年的杰作。
本书为Signet Classics推出的英文原版，除《不可儿戏》，同时收录了王尔德有名的悲剧《莎乐美》和《温夫人的扇子》。由Sylvan Barnet作序，Elise Bruhl和Michael Gamer后记，内容完整无删减，书本小巧便携。

A universal favorite, The Importance of Being Earnest displays Oscar Wilde’swit andtheatrical genius at its brilliant best. Subtitled “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People”, this hilarious attack on Victorian manners and morals turns a pompous world on its head, lets duplicity lead to happiness, and makes riposte the highest form of art.Written, according to Wilde,“by a butterfly for butterflies,” it is a dazzling masterpiece of comic entertainment.
Although it was originally written in four acts,The Importance of Being Earnest is usually performed in a three-act version. This authoritative edition features an appendix that restores valuable lines that appeared in the original. 
Also included in this special collection are Wilde’s first comedy success, Lady Windermere’s Fan, and his richly sensual melodrama, Salome, which he called“that terrible coloured little tragedy I once in some strange mood wrote”—and which shocked and enraged the censors of his time.
With a new Introduction bySylvan Barnetand a New Afterword byElise Bruhl and Michael Gamer 

Salome《莎乐美》

莎乐美是希罗底（希律王的第二任妻子）的女儿，希律王（巴勒斯坦伽里黎的统治者）的继女。其母因施洗约翰指责她通奸，阻止希律王娶她为妻，而对施洗约翰怀恨在心。遂将莎乐美作为其复仇工具，指示她以跳舞取悦希律王，以换取圣人的人头。不久，希律王难以控制他的感情，对继女莎乐美产生迷恋。而莎乐美自己对圣人施洗约翰的爱被遭到拒绝后，因爱生恨，在为希律王跳七重纱舞时乘机索要圣人的首级，后来亲吻其头颅。终于，莎乐美得到了与圣人相同的命运，被处以死刑。

Lady Windermere’s Fan《温夫人的扇子》
王尔德的第1本喜剧，所探讨的主题是上流社会的定义，说得具体一点，便是淑女与荡妇之别，王尔德的答案是：难以区别。要做淑女或荡妇，往往取决于一念之差。未经考验的淑女，也许就是潜在荡妇。众口相传的荡妇，却未必是真正的荡妇。换一句话说，天真的女人不一定好，世故的女人也不一定坏。同时，未经民故的女人习于顺境，反而苛以待人，而饱经世故的女人深谙逆境，反而宽以处世。在《温夫人的扇子》里，母女两人都陷入了这种“道德暧昧之境”。这个故事说到温夫人发现她的丈夫可能与其他女人有染，但是他竟邀请那个女人，欧琳太太，参加她的生日舞会。温夫人对丈夫的不忠怒火中烧，准备离开丈夫与情人私奔。欧琳太太获悉这一秘密，尾随温夫人，试图说服她回到丈夫身边，在此过程中，欧琳太太在一个尴尬的情形中被发现，她牺牲自己的声誉，来挽救温夫人的婚姻。

The Importance of Being Earnest《不可儿戏》
《不可儿戏》完全超越了道德纠纷，原则上一切角色都不正派，只有配角劳小姐是个小小例外，至于杰克和亚吉能一对浪子，加上关多琳和西西丽一对刁妮，当然都属于后一类。每逢正主在场，多半言语无味，一到反客开口，妙语警句就如天女散花，飘逸不滞，绝无冷场。王尔德的名言大半是由他们说出来的。

奥斯卡·王尔德（Oscar Wilde，1854~1900），出生于爱尔兰都柏林，是知名的作家、诗人、戏剧家、艺术家，唯美主义艺术运动的倡导者。他于1874年进入牛津大学学习，受到了沃尔特·佩特及约翰·拉斯金的审美观念影响，并接触了新黑格尔派哲学、达尔文进化论和拉斐尔前派的作品。王尔德于1884年结婚，婚后生了两个孩子。1895年因为与同性友人阿尔弗莱德·道格拉斯（Lord Alfred Douglas）交往，进而被判入狱。1897年获释后前去巴黎，直至1900年在巴黎因病去世。著有童话集《快乐王子与其他故事》等、诗集《斯芬克斯》等、小说《道林·格雷的画像》等、戏剧《不可儿戏》《莎乐美》等，另有散文《自深深处》与评论集数本，是不可多得的全才作家。

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was an outstanding student of classics at Trinity College, and in 1874, he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize with his poemRavenna (1878). An early leader of the Aesthetic Movement, which advanced the concept of “art for art’s sake,” Wilde became a prominent personality in literary and social circles. His volume of fairy tales, The Happy Prince and Other Tales(1888), was followed by The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and The House of Pomegranates (1892). However, it was not until his play Lady Windermere’s Fan(1892) was presented to the public that he became widely famous. A Woman of No Importance (1893) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) confirmed his stature as a dramatist. In 1895, he brought libel action against the Marquis of Queensbury, who had accused him of the crime of sodomy. He lost, however, and was sentenced under the Criminal Law Amendment Act to two years’ imprisonment with hard labor. Upon his release in 1897, he settled in France, where he wrote his most powerful and enduring poem,The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). Wilde never returned to England; he died in Paris.
Sylvan Barnetis a Professor Emeritus of English at Tufts University and generaleditor of the Signet Classics Shakespeare.
Elise Bruhlis aDeputy City Solicitor in the City of Philadelphia Law Department. She has authored and coauthored articles on topics such as contract law, pro se litigation, Emma Hamilton, and Angela Carter. She is currently at work on a book,Losing Cases, which chronicles well-known trials, including the trials of Oscar Wilde.Michael Gamer is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and author ofRomanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception, and Canon Formation. He is currently at work on two books:Recollections in Tranquillity: The Collected Author and the Institutionalization of Romanticism andA History of British Theatre: Staged Conflicts. He is coeditor ofThe Broadview Anthology of Romantic Drama and Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth’sLyrical Ballads 1798 and 1800. 

INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
Salome
Lady Windermere’s Fan 
The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People 
APPENDIX: The Gribsby Episode inThe Importance of Being Earnest
AFTERWORD
SUGGESTED REFERENCES

First Act
Scene—Morning-room of Lord Windermere’s house in Carlton House Terrace. Doors C. and R. Bureau with books and papers R. Sofa with small tea-table L. Window opening on to terrace L. Table R. (Lady Windermere is at table R., arranging roses in a blue bowl.) (Enter Parker.
Parker:Is your ladyship at home this afternoon?
Lady Windermere:Yes—who has called?
Parker:Lord Darlington, my lady.
Lady Windermere: (Hesitates for a moment.) Show him up—and I’m at home to any one who calls.
Parker: Yes, my lady. (Exit C.
Lady Windermere:It’s best for me to see him before to-night. I’m glad he’s come. (Enter Parker C.
Parker:Lord Darlington. (Enter Lord Darlington C. (Exit Parker.
Lord Darlington:How do you do, Lady Windermere?
Lady Windermere:How do you do, Lord Darlington? No, I can’t shake hands with you. My hands are all wet with these roses. Aren’t they lovely? They came up from Selby this morning.
Lord Darlington:They are quite perfect. (Sees a fan lying on the table.) And what a wonderful fan! May I look at it?
Lady Windermere:Do. Pretty, isn’t it! It’s got my name on it, and everything. I have only just seen it myself. It’s my husband’s birthday present to me. You know to-day is my birthday?
Lord Darlington: No? Is it really?
Lady Windermere:Yes, I’m of age to-day. Quite an important day in my life, isn’t it? That is why I am giving this party to-night. Do sit down. (Still arranging flowers.)
Lord Darlington: (Sitting down.) I wish I had known it was your birthday, Lady Windermere. I would have covered the whole street in front of your house with flowers for you to walk on. They are made for you. (A short pause.)
Lady Windermere: Lord Darlington, you annoyed me last night at the Foreign Office. I am afraid you are going to annoy me again.
Lord Darlington:I, Lady Windermere? (Enter Parker and Footman C., with tray and tea things.
Lady Windermere: Put it there, Parker. That will do. (Wipes her hands with her pocket-handkerchief, goes to tea-table L., and sits down.) Won’t you come over, Lord Darlington? (Exit Parker C.
Lord Darlington:(Takes chair and goes across L.C.) I am quite miserable, Lady Windermere. You must tell me what I did. (Sits down at table L.)
Lady Windermere: Well, you kept paying me elaborate compliments the whole evening.
Lord Darlington: (Smiling.) Ah, now-a-days we are all of us so hard up, that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They’re the only things we can pay.
Lady Windermere:(Shaking her head.) No, I am talking very seriously. You mustn’t laugh, I am quite serious. I don’t like compliments, and I don’t see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn’t mean.
Lord Darlington:Ah, but I did mean them. (Takes tea which she offers him.)
Lady Windermere:(Gravely.) I hope not. I should be sorry to have to quarrel with you, Lord Darlington. I like you very much, you know that. But I shouldn’t like you at all if I thought you were what most other men are. Believe me, you are better than most other men, and I sometimes think you pretend to be worse.
Lord Darlington:We all have our little vanities, Lady Windermere.
Lady Windermere:Why do you make that your special one? (Still seated at table L.)
Lord Darlington: (Still seated L.C.) Oh, now-a-days so many conceited people go about Society6 pretending to be good, that I think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to be bad. Besides, there is this to be said. If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
Lady Windermere: Don’t you want the world to take you seriously then, Lord Darlington?
Lord Darlington:No, not the world. Who are the people the world takes seriously? All the dull people one can think of, from the Bishops down to the bores. I should like you to take me very seriously, Lady Windermere, you more than any one else in life.
Lady Windermere:Why—why me?
Lord Darlington:(After a slight hesitation.) Because I think we might be great friends. Let us be great friends. You may want a friend some day.
Lady Windermere:Why do you say that?
Lord Darlington:Oh!—we all want friends at times.
Lady Windermere:I think we’re very good friends already, Lord Darlington. We can always remain so as long as you don’t——
Lord Darlington:Don’t what?
Lady Windermere: Don’t spoil it by saying extravagant silly things to me. You think I am a Puritan, I suppose? Well, I have something of the Puritan in me. I was brought up like that. I am glad of it. My mother died when I was a mere child. I lived always with Lady Julia, my father’s elder sister you know. She was stern to me, but she taught me, what the world is forgetting, the difference that there is between what is right and what is wrong. She allowed of no compromise. I allow of none.
Lord Darlington:My dear Lady Windermere!
Lady Windermere:(Leaning back on the sofa.) You look on me as being behind the age.—Well, I am! I should be sorry to be on the same level as an age like this.
Lord Darlington: You think the age very bad?
Lady Windermere: Yes. Now-a-days people seem to look on life as a speculation.8 It is not a speculation. It is a sacrament. Its ideal is Love. Its purification is sacrifice.
Lord Darlington: (Smiling.) Oh, anything is better than being sacrificed!
Lady Windermere: (Leaning forward.) Don’t say that.
Lord Darlington: I do say it. I feel it—I know it. (Enter Parker C.
Parker: The men want to know if they are to put the carpets on the terrace for to-night, my lady?
Lady Windermere:You don’t think it will rain, Lord Darlington, do you?
Lord Darlington: I won’t hear of its raining on your birthday!
Lady Windermere: Tell them to do it at once, Parker. (Exit Parker C.
Lord Darlington:(Still seated.) Do you think then—of course I am only putting an imaginary instance—do you think that in the case of a young married couple, say about two years married, if the husband suddenly becomes the intimate friend of a woman of—well, more than doubtful character, is always calling upon her, lunching with her, and probably paying her bills—do you think that the wife should not console herself?