A Woman of No Importance: The Persons of the Play

To
Gladys
Countess de Grey
(Marchioness of Ripon)

Dramatis Personae

Lord Illingworth
Sir John Pontefract
Lord Alfred Rufford
Mr. Kelvil, M.P.
The Ven. Archdeacon Daubeny, D.D.
Gerald Arbuthnot
Farquhar, butler
Francis, footman
Lady Hunstanton
Lady Caroline Pontefract
Lady Stutfield
Mrs. Allonby
Miss Hester Worsley
Alice, maid
Mrs. Arbuthnot

The Scenes of the Play

Act I: The terrace at Hunstanton Chase.

Act II: The drawing-room at Hunstanton Chase.

Act III: The hall at Hunstanton Chase.

Act IV: Sitting-room in Mrs. Arbuthnot’s house at Wrockley.

Time: The present.

Place: The Shires.

The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours.

The Persons of the Play in brief

Wilde dedicates the play to Gladys, Countess de Grey, and lists fifteen persons, from Lord Illingworth and the guests at Hunstanton Chase to the butler Farquhar, the footman Francis and the maid Alice. The first three acts take place at Hunstanton Chase, on the terrace, in the drawing-room and in the hall. The fourth is set in Mrs Arbuthnot's sitting-room at Wrockley. The time is the present, the place the Shires, and the action lasts less than twenty-four hours.

Summary

Who's who

Lord Illingworth
Charm without conscience. Born George Harford, a younger son who came into the title about four years before the play begins, he is the most brilliant talker at Hunstanton and turns every subject into a paradox.
Mrs Arbuthnot
The mother with a past. Rachel, who left her father's house at little over eighteen with George Harford on his promise of marriage.
Gerald Arbuthnot
The ambitious son. A clerk in a small provincial bank on a hundred a year, he has not been to Eton or Oxford like other young men and is dazzled by Lord Illingworth's offer and his talk.
Hester Worsley
The American Puritan. An American orphan of eighteen, rich from her father's fortune and staying at Hunstanton, who says exactly what she thinks.
Lady Hunstanton
The forgetful hostess. Jane, the kind and muddled mistress of Hunstanton Chase, is forever half-remembering old scandals and forgetting whether a man died of joy or gout.
Mrs Allonby
The clever flirt. A married woman with a quick, daring tongue who, as Lady Hunstanton tells her, never means a single word she says.

Words to know

Dramatis Personae: the persons of the drama, in Latin: the list of characters
Marchioness: the wife of a marquess, a rank of nobility above a countess
M.P.: member of Parliament, elected to sit in the House of Commons
Ven.: the Venerable, the formal title given to an archdeacon
D.D.: doctor of divinity, a senior university degree in theology
The Shires: the rural hunting counties of the English Midlands