Abstract
The progress of The Importance of Being Earnest from its first embryonic state in the summer of 1894 to the triumphant opening at the St James's Theatre on February 14th, 1895 is both complex and obscure. There are gaps in Wilde's correspondence, most of which is undated. The relationship between the various drafts, manuscript and typescript, both the three- and four-act version, is hard to establish definitively. The prompt-copy of the first production is missing, though an early prompt-copy of Alexander exists. This essay will begin by tracing some of the background to the play's inception, and propose a few adjustments to the sequence; and it will review one or two stages of the business negotiations which form an integral part of the process which shaped Wilde's last play.
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