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Plot

Algernon Moncrieff, an aristocratic young Londoner, is visited by his best friend, whom he knows as Ernest Worthing. Ernest arrives from the country with the intention of proposing to Algernon's cousin, Gwendolen. Algernon refuses to grant Ernest his permission until he explains why the cigarette case he left in Algernon's flat bears the inscription, "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." "Ernest" is thus forced to disclose that he is leading a double life: in the country, he goes by the name of John (or Jack), pretending that he has a wastrel brother named Ernest living in London and requiring his frequent attention. He assumes a serious attitude for the benefit of his ward, Cecily, the granddaughter of Jack's late adoptive father, but in the city, he assumes the name and behaviour of the libertine Ernest. Algernon reveals that he engages in a similar deception: he pretends to have an invalid friend named Bunbury in the country; whenever Algernon wants to avoid unwelcome social obligations, he "goes Bunburying" instead.

Lady Bracknell arrives with Gwendolen, her daughter, and invites Algernon to dine with them, but he uses his Bunbury excuse to get out of the situation. As he distracts Lady Bracknell in another room, Jack proposes to Gwendolen, who accepts, but seems to love him only for his professed name of Ernest; Jack decides to be christened as Ernest. Lady Bracknell walks in on them and insists on thoroughly questioning Jack as a suitor. She is horrified to learn that he was adopted as a baby after being discovered in a handbag at a railway station. She refuses him and forbids her daughter from ever seeing him. Gwendolen, however, sneaks back to the house to tell Jack that she will always love him, and asks his address in the country. When Jack gives it to her, Algernon writes it on the cuff of his sleeve; Jack's description of his pretty young ward has so appealed to him that he is resolved to meet her.

At Jack's country house, Cecily's governess, Miss Prism, is going over her German lesson with her. However, the rector Dr. Chasuble, an admirer of Miss Prism, arrives, and Cecily manages to get out of her work by setting up a romantic walk between Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism. Algernon arrives, announcing himself as Ernest Worthing. Cecily has for some time imagined herself in love with her Uncle Jack's "wicked" younger brother (even fantasising that they are engaged), and Algernon easily sweeps her off her feet. Like Gwendolen, though, Cecily loves her "Ernest" at least in part for his name, and thus Algernon asks Dr. Chasuble to christen him.

Jack, meanwhile, has decided to put his life as Ernest behind him. He arrives at his country house in mourning clothes claiming that Ernest has died in Paris of a "severe chill", but is forced to abandon this claim by the presence of Algernon in the role of "Ernest".

Gwendolen arrives, having fled London and her mother to be with her love. When she and Cecily meet, in the temporary absence of the two men, each indignantly insists that she is the one engaged to "Ernest". When Jack and Algernon reappear, their deceptions are exposed. When the men explain themselves, they are forgiven, and the women agree not to break off the engagements when each man announces his intention to be re-christened.

Now Lady Bracknell arrives in pursuit of her daughter. She is surprised to find Algernon there instead of with "Bunbury", but is distracted when she learns that Algernon and Cecily are engaged. Any initial doubts over Cecily's suitability as a wife for her nephew are dispelled when the size of Cecily's trust fund is revealed. However, stalemate transpires when Jack denies his consent to the marriage of his ward to Algernon until Lady Bracknell consents to his own marriage to Gwendolen.

The impasse is broken by the appearance of Cecily's governess, Miss Prism. Lady Bracknell recognizes Miss Prism, who twenty-eight years earlier had been a family nursemaid. One day she left Lord Bracknell's house with a baby boy in a perambulator and never returned. Miss Prism explains that, in a moment of "mental abstraction", she had put the manuscript of a novel she was writing in the perambulator, and put the baby in a handbag, which she had left at Victoria Station. Jack produces the very same handbag, showing that he is the lost baby, the elder son of Lady Bracknell's late sister, and thus Algernon's elder brother. Lady Bracknell informs Jack that, as the firstborn son, he must have been named after his father, General Moncrieff, but cannot remember the general's first name. Jack looks in the Army Lists and discovers that his father's name - and hence his - was in fact Ernest after all. As the happy couples embrace - Ernest and Gwendolen, Algernon and Cecily, and Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism - Lady Bracknell complains to her new-found relative: "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality."

"On the contrary, Aunt Augusta," he replies, "I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest."