8vo. Half-title. Original lilac cloth gilt designed by Charles Shannon, uncut and unopened (separation to portion of upper joint neatly repaired, small repair to foot of lower board, spine browning, slight bubbling to upper cover, slight wear to extremities). 

FIRST EDITION, LIMITED ISSUE, one of 1,000 copies (this copy being unnumbered) of Wilde's "last and greatest play" (Ellman, Oscar Wilde, p.412). The Importance of Being Earnest opened at St. James's Theater in London on 14 February 1895, but was withdrawn after only 86 performances after Wilde's arrest and imprisonment on charges of gross indecency. Mason 381.