A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde. Short summary

5 seconds

At Lady Gunstanton’s reception, Lord Ealingworth learns that the young man he has appointed as his private secretary is his illegitimate son by «a woman not worth seeing,» Mrs. Arbetnott.

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Lady Jane Gunstanton gathers guests at her estate. The English nobility is making small talk. The prim and idle chatter of the Victorian morals is countered by Miss Esther Worsley, a young American who does not accept silly conventions.

Among the guests is Lord Ealingworth, a socialite but, according to hints from those present, an immoral scoundrel who sees in women only a means of satiating his lust. Young Gerald Arbetnott, whom Lord Ealingworth has decided to hire as his secretary, is also invited to the reception. His mother is «a woman not worthy of attention,» according to the characterization of the socialite lion.

Mrs. Arbetnott, the widow, enters. She is a woman of refined manners, beautiful. She recognizes in Ealingworth her lover, who seduced and abandoned her. The woman, so that Gerald, born out of wedlock, will not be ostracized, has lied all her life about being a widow. Now she doesn’t want her son working for his father. But she doesn’t want to reveal the truth to Gerald either.

Gerald himself refuses the offer, having seen the mean nature of his employer.