In June 1893, with his second drawing room play, A Woman of No Importance, running successfully at the Haymarket Theatre, Oscar Wilde began writing An Ideal Husband for the actor-manager John Hare. He completed the first act while staying at a house he had taken at Goring-on-Thames, after which he named a leading character in the play.[1] Between September 1893 and January 1894 he wrote the remaining three acts. Hare rejected the play, finding the last act unsatisfactory;[2] Wilde then successfully offered the play to Lewis Waller, who was about to take temporary charge of the Haymarket in the absence in America of its usual manager, Herbert Beerbohm Tree.[1]
The play was put into rehearsal in December 1894 and opened on 3 January 1895, billed as "A new and original play of modern life". It ran at the Haymarket for 111 performances, regarded as a good run at the time.[a] In April, on the last day of the Haymarket run, Wilde was arrested for gross indecency; his name was removed from the playbills and programmes when the production transferred to the Criterion Theatre, where it ran for a further 13 performances, from 13 to 27 April.[4] The play could have run longer at the Criterion, but the theatre was required by its proprietor, Charles Wyndham, for a new production.[5]
The play was published in 1899 in an edition of 1000 copies; Wilde's name was not printed: the work was published as "By the author of Lady Windermere's Fan".[6] It is dedicated to Frank Harris, "A slight tribute to his power and distinction as an artist, his chivalry and nobility as a friend."[7] The published version differs slightly from the performed play, as Wilde added many passages and cut others. Prominent additions included written stage directions and character descriptions. Wilde was a leader in the effort to make plays accessible to the reading public.[8]
