The first of these, “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, opened on 20 February 1892, to generally enthusiastic reviews, though to some critics Wilde’s paradoxical wit seemed a facile, easily constructed device.

Of the critical reviews, the most enthusiastic was by A.B.Walkley, one of the most respected and influential drama critics of his day, who found the play and its “brilliant talk” entirely successful. “Black and White”, a literary critical review, thought that the play, despite the obvious formula of the well-made play was very amusing, and the “Westminster Review”, another critical journal, opened its review with the observation that “Mr. Oscar Wilde is nothing unless brilliant and witty”22 “The Critical Heritage” by K.Beckson, Great Britain, 1970, p.325. Both of these journals questioned whether “Lady Windermere’s Fan” was a play or a series of brilliant paradoxes and epigrams, but concluded that if someone was interested in plays he should go at once to see it.

O.Wilde’s plays were written in a light satirical vein, cultured and refined, and in good taste. His characters served as the mouths to enunciate the author’s exquisitely funny remarks on society. The remarks of the cynical young men about life, love and society and the garrulous Duchess of Berwick, may show a keen appreciation of the vices of the upper-class society.

Surely a good moral woman, such as Lady Windermere is made out to be, would not desert her husband because of the mere gossip of a scandal-mongering old lady. Lord Windermere also would never have allowed matters to come to a crisis without taking his wife into confidence and explaining to her a little sooner his relationship with Mrs. Erlynne. But this is not Mr. Wilde’s idea. He was anxious to express to the world his reflections on things in general, to lash the pretty vices of people of fashion, and did not, in the least, wish to tell a good story. So, the plot does not matter, as the whole interest lies in the conversation, which is as if many Wildes, male and female, were talking together. The dialogue is exquisitely funny and successful. It is satirical without being aggravating to audience. It is beating, and at the same time genial and good-humoured. It is an original, clever and ridiculous piece portraying London society as it is seen through the spectacles of Mr. Oscar Wilde.

However, some reviewers were less impressed. The sullen Clement Scott (whom B.Shaw caricatured in his play “The Philanderer”, 1893) devoted much of his review in the “Illustrated London News” to chastising Wilde for bad manners in appearing before the curtain, after the play had concluded, with a cigarette in his hand and for the cynicism which he detected in his play.

Justin McCarthy’s signed notice in “Gentleman’s Magazine” was also concerned more with Wilde than with the play – an indication that, to these critics, Wilde, not the play, was the thing.

“Lady Windermere’s Fan” ran for five months before it was taken on tour of the provinces. An early indication that Wilde’s fame as a dramatist was known on the Continent occurs in a letter, dated 5 September 1892, to Wilde from J.T.Grein, a founder of the Independent Theatre, who drew up on Wilde’s behalf a contract with a Doctor O.Blumenthal for the sole right of production of “Lady Windermere’s Fan” in Austria and Germany, half of his fees and other royalties to go to Wilde33 “The Critical Heritage” by K.Beckson, Great Britain, 1970, p.301. Publication of the play occurred in November 1892, by the Bodley Head. The play was first translated into French in 1913.

When the New York production of the play opened on February 6, 1893, the drama critics of the leading dailies were generally restrained in their judgements. Despite the lack of critical enthusiasm, the play had a highly successful run of several months.

Following Wilde’s death revivals of the play at the St. James’s Theatre were given in 1902, 1904, 1911. Clearly, “Lady Windermere’s Fan” was a stunning recovery from Wilde’s two previous theatrical failures, and since this was his first play, produced in England. The triumph was of singularly greater significance.

His next venture, “Salome”, rehearsals for which were proceeding with Sarah Bernhardt in the leading role, encountered the displeasure of the Examiner of Plays for the Lord Chamberlain, who refused to license it since it contained Biblical characters.

This time, however, Wilde, who was perhaps the most talked-about writer in England, though not the most widely read, expressed his anger with less then his usual restraint, no longer concerned with merely humouring his detractors with witticisms. Wilde complained bitterly that the ordinary English newspapers were trying to harm “Salome” in every way, though they have not read it.

The play was published in French in 1893. In its review of the