Story summary
Streszczenie książki Lady Windermere's Fan
- 8 min czytania
- 8 parts
- Nagranie wkrótce
A wife finds a secret bankbook that afternoon, a rival attends her birthday ball, and a fan goes missing that night.
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Lady Windermere's Fan — najważniejsze informacje
Streszczenie: 8 min czytania
- Czas czytania
- Około 1 h 20 min1 h 5 min fast, 1 h 35 min slow
- Długość
- Liczba słów: 18 9002 chapters
- Strony
- Liczba stron: 5685 in large print
- Poziom trudności w bibliotece
- Średni longer sentences, everyday words
- Pierwsze wydanie
- 1893by Oscar Wilde
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Ile czasu zajmuje przeczytanie klasyków · Zaktualizowano
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Lady Windermere's Fan in short
The play follows one day in a London marriage. Lady Windermere believes in strict rules, then learns that her husband is paying a woman she has never met. He asks her to invite that woman to her birthday dance, and she refuses.
What Lady Windermere's Fan is about
What would you do if a stranger told you that your husband is paying bills for another woman? Lady Windermere, a young wife who has just turned twenty-one, hears exactly that on the afternoon of her birthday. She holds strict beliefs. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and a woman who falls should never be forgiven.
Lady Windermere's Fan is a comedy by Oscar Wilde, written for the London stage in the early 1890s. Duchesses gossip and bachelors trade jokes. Under the laughter sits a serious question: who deserves the respect of Society, and who deserves its scorn? You will meet a husband with a secret, a bold woman with a past, and a charming man who offers an escape.
Dla kogo. Readers who love quick wit, drawing room comedy and moral puzzles will enjoy this play, as will anyone who likes a story of secrets and a marriage under strain.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A strict young wife lays down her rules
The play opens on a Tuesday afternoon in the morning room of Lord Windermere's house in London. Lady Windermere is arranging roses in a blue bowl. Today is her twenty-first birthday, and she gives a dance tonight. Her husband has sent her a fan with her name written on it.
Her first visitor is Lord Darlington, a witty man who pays her elaborate compliments. She tells him she dislikes them. She calls herself a Puritan, raised by an aunt who allowed no compromise. Life, she says, is not a business but a sacrament. Darlington answers that people are not good or bad but charming or tedious.
Earlier, he asks a strange question and calls it an imaginary example. A husband pays the bills of a woman of doubtful character. May the wife console herself? Lady Windermere is shocked. Any woman who has fallen, she says, should never be forgiven. She is loving, certain and proud of her purity, and she has never been tested. Every rule she announces here comes back to meet her before the night is out.
A person who divides the world into good and bad has not yet met the case that proves otherwise.
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The Duchess brings news and a bankbook agrees
The next visitor is the Duchess of Berwick, who arrives with her daughter, Lady Agatha.
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A husband asks for the impossible
Lord Windermere walks in and sees the cut book on the floor.
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The ball opens and Society shows its face
Act Two moves to the drawing room, bright with palms, flowers and a band.
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Darlington offers escape and a letter is written
Lady Windermere returns from the terrace with Lord Darlington.
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A fan is left behind in Darlington's rooms
Act Three takes place in Lord Darlington's rooms, with a large sofa by the fireplace and a curtain across the window.
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Nobody is simply good or simply bad
The deepest idea in the play is that the labels good and bad are too crude.
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Secrets, a fan and sparkling talk drive the drama
The play is built tightly.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Lady Windermere A young wife of twenty-one, loving and strict in her beliefs, who wants her marriage to rest on honesty and her world to stay simple.
- Lord Windermere Her husband, who loves her and carries a secret he dares not share, and who wants to protect her from pain.
- Mrs. Erlynne A clever, elegant woman with a past, who arrives in London and wants a place in Society and a secure future.
- Lord Darlington A witty man who pretends to be wicked, claims to be Lady Windermere's friend, and wants her love.
- The Duchess of Berwick A chattering aristocrat who spreads news, watches over her daughter and wants her married well.
- Lord Augustus Lorton The Duchess's brother, a good-natured, previously married man who is devoted to Mrs. Erlynne and wants her answer.
- Cecil Graham A young man about town who loves gossip and clever sayings, and enjoys other people's business more than his own.
- Lady Agatha Carlisle The Duchess's obedient daughter, who answers yes, Mamma, to everything and attracts a rich young Australian.
How it ends (spoiler)
Cecil Graham points out the fan, and Lord Windermere seizes it and demands to search Darlington's rooms. Mrs. Erlynne steps out and says she took it by mistake, taking the blame while Lady Windermere slips away. Next morning Mrs. Erlynne returns the fan; in private conversation, Windermere confirms that she is Margaret's mother, who abandoned her twenty years ago. She insists on silence, keeps the fan, and accepts Lord Augustus on condition that they live abroad. Lady Windermere keeps the secret.
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Pytania o Lady Windermere's Fan
What is Lady Windermere's Fan about?
It follows a young wife who believes in strict rules and then suspects her husband of paying a notorious woman. Over twenty-four hours, a birthday ball, a letter and a lost fan test her ideas about right and wrong.
Who is Mrs. Erlynne?
She is a beautiful, clever woman with a past who arrives in London six months before the play begins. Society whispers about her, and Lord Windermere asks his wife to receive her, which starts the quarrel that drives the plot.
What does the fan mean in the play?
The fan is a birthday gift with Lady Windermere's name on it. It becomes a weapon she threatens to use, a shield she holds at the ball, and finally the object that links people to a secret place.
When was Lady Windermere's Fan written and is it a true story?
Oscar Wilde wrote it as a stage comedy in the early 1890s. It is fiction, set in the London society of its own day, though it draws on real habits of gossip and etiquette.
Is Lady Windermere's Fan easy to read?
The play is told in short speeches, with clear stage directions and four acts. Its jokes are quick, its scenes are brief, and the plot moves fast, so it reads easily and aloud it is lively and engaging.
Zacytuj to wydanie
Wilde, Oscar. Lady Windermere's Fan. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/lady-windermere-s-fan.
Wilde, O. (2026). Lady Windermere's fan. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/lady-windermere-s-fan (Original work published 1893)
Wilde, Oscar. Lady Windermere's Fan. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/lady-windermere-s-fan.
@book{wilde2026lady,
author = {Wilde, Oscar},
title = {Lady Windermere's Fan},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/lady-windermere-s-fan},
note = {First published 1893}
}
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