By Oscar Wilde

For Gertrude Chiltern, living by the highest moral standards is more important than anything: wealth, status – even love. She is fortunate, then, that her husband, Sir Robert, is the embodiment of her ideal: a junior Cabinet minister of growing influence, he enjoys a reputation for scrupulous honesty.

But is that reputation entirely deserved? The notorious Mrs. Cheveley has good reason to think otherwise. And at a reception at the Chilterns’ London townhouse, Mrs. Cheveley confronts Sir Robert with damning evidence of a past misdeed; evidence which, if made public, would destroy his career – and his marriage – at a stoke. Even worse, the price for Mrs. Cheveley’s silence is not money, but a political favour that would require Sir Robert to ‘mislead’ the Government.

In despair, Sir Robert turns for help to his friend, Lord Goring, a foppish socialite of some renown. Goring, it transpires, knows Mrs. Cheveley of old and has a plan to help Sir Robert. But Goring’s clever proposal has unexpected consequences. And he, Sir Robert and Gertrude have to engage in a complex and dangerous game with the vicious Mrs. Cheveley – a game in which the stakes could not be higher . . .

Wilde’s dark, glittering comedy explores the risks inherent in a life lived in the public spotlight: must a politician be perfect? Is it right that anyone should be judged entirely by their past? In 1895, such questions caused a sensation; with new questions about political integrity now dominating our own age, this elegant, stylish work retains a surprisingly sharp contemporary resonance.