Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) wrote A Woman of No Importance in the summer of 1892.  It was produced with immediate success in 1893.  Responding to the standing ovation on opening night, Wilde rose from his seat and declared, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Mr. Oscar Wilde is not in the house."   The play was revived in 1907.

An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest followed in 1895, the same year as his infamous prosecution, imprisonment and bankruptcy.

While A Woman of No Importance contains elements of an earlier comedy, Lady Windermere's Fan, a work that Wilde described as  "a drawing-room play with pink lampshades,"  it is more of  a morality tale (albeit with his brilliant, biting sarcasm), exposing the hypocrisy and cruelty of British society and the unequal standards that women were expected to uphold while their male counterparts caroused unscathed.