An Ideal Husband

An Ideal Husband is a satirical play about blackmail, politics, morality, and marriage by Victorian writer Oscar Wilde. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal in Haymarket, London, on January 3, 1895. Wilde was an acclaimed playwright in London at the time, though his imprisonment in late 1895 marked his fall from public grace. The play has since been adapted for both film and theater across the world, as have many of Wilde’s other plays and novels. An Ideal Husband examines the staunch moralism of Victorian England, exploring themes of Life as Art, Fashionable Morality Versus Authentic Marriage, and The Meaning of Class and Gender in a Modern World.

This study guide uses a collection of Oscar Wilde’s plays entitled The Importance of Being Earnest & Other Plays, published by MacMillan Collector’s Library in 2017. An Ideal Husband is on pages 195-318.

Plot Summary

Sir Robert Chiltern, a member of the House of Commons and director of Foreign Offices, hosts a party where the height of English society gather to discuss their morals and their boredom. In attendance are Lord Goring and his father,

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