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As the first collection of essays about Oscar Wilde´s comedies, the contributors re-evaluate Oscar Wilde´s society plays as ´comedies of manners" to see whether this is actually an apt way to read Wilde´s most emblematic plays. Focusing on both the context and the texts, the collection locates Wilde both in his social and literary contexts.

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"Oscar Wilde´s Society Plays is brilliant in its richness of points of view on why this playwright´s comedies of manners are so funny and so serious at the same time. Bennett has assembled discussions by scholars well-known and new who boldly, convincingly, and entertainingly mine Wilde´s texts and contexts, producing a book that is a feast of wit and wisdom in its own right." - Robert Combs, Professor, English, George Washington University, USA

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Jerusha McCormack, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China Petra Dierkes-Thrun, Stanford University, USA Joseph Bristow, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Melissa Knox, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany Steven Price, Bangor University, UK Richard Allen Cave, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK Helena Gurfinkel, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA Helen Davies, Teesside University, UK S.I. Salamensky, University of Louisville, USA

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