An Ideal Husband

An Ideal Husband is a four-act play by Oscar Wilde that revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour. It was first produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London in 1895 and ran for 124 performances. It has been revived in many theatre productions and adapted for the cinema, radio and television.

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 in Goring-by-Sea, after which he named a leading character in the play. Between September 1893 and January 1894 he wrote the remaining three acts. Hare rejected the play, finding the last act unsatisfactory; 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.