Algernon: Your name isn't Jack; it is Ernest. Jack: It isn't Ernest; it's Jack. Algernon: You have always told me that your name is Ernest.

I have introduced you to everyone as Ernest. You answer to the name Ernest.

You look as if your name is Ernest.

You are the most earnest-looking person I have ever seen in my life.

It is perfectly ridiculous to tell me your name isn't Ernest. Oscar Wilde's comic masterpiece of love and mistaken identity was a great hit when it first appeared on the stage in 1895.

It has remained hugely popular with theatre audiences ever since.

This Macmillan Reader is written as a playscript.