Algernon: Your name isn't Jack; it is Ernest.
Jack: It isn't Ernest; It's Jack.
Algernon: You have always told me that your name is Ernest. I have introduced you to everyone as Ernest. You answer to the name Ernest. You look as if your name is Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I have ever seen in my life. It is perfectly ridiculous to tell me your name isn't Ernest.
Oscar Wilde's comic masterpiece of love and mistaken identity was a great hit when it first appeared on the stage in 1895. It has remained hugely popular with theatre audience ever since.
This Macmillan Reader is written as a playscript.
