Lady Windermere's marriage is on the brink, as her husband is giving away great gobs of time and money to some strumpet. Lives are about to be ruined, until the other woman (who is not quite the other woman) manages a reconciliation. It's quite obvious just who Mrs. Erlynne is some time before the big reveal, and the misunderstandings here are entirely based on the Idiot Plot device of characters who refuse to communicate sensibly with each other, but it's still very witty and quite touching. Mrs. Erlynne is the most compelling character of the lot, but then she's got the backstory for it.

I've only ever read this, and never seen it performed, but it's going on my list of plays I really want to see. I have a feeling that the humour and emotional effects will be heightened through performance, which is something that should happen with plays as a matter of course, but frequently doesn't. I don't know if I'd find it as purely entertaining as The Importance of Being Ernest, but it would come a close second. As in that play, I kept coming across lines that I knew, lines that have come into common parlance, and having the happy realisation that this was where they came from.