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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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The Importance of Being Earnest
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(1895) The last and most brilliant of Oscar *Wilde's comedies. The play concerns Algernon Moncrieff's courtship of Cecily Cardew and his friend Jack Worthing's of Gwendolen Fairfax (a pursuit made hazardous by the sharp tongue of her mother, Lady Bracknell). The frivolous young men ease their social life with the help of invented characters; Jack is known as Ernest when he is in town, while Algy has created Bunbury, a sickly relation in the country, whom he pretends to visit to avoid dreary London engagements.
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The play succeeds through its flow of epigram, but the plot is neatly tied together when it is revealed that Jack as a baby was accidentally left by Miss Prism, the governess, in a handbag at Victoria station; that he is Algy's brother; and that his real name is indeed Ernest, which happens to be Gwendolen's favourite. The 'importance of being earnest' (the final phrase of the play) thus applies both to his real identity and to the ending of frivolity as the couples at last come together.
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