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50 free The Importance of Being Earnest trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Oscar Wilde's Trivial Comedy for Serious People has been called the second most quoted play in English after Hamlet, and this quiz covers it from every angle: the plot of the two men who both pretend to be Ernest, the imaginary invalid Bunbury, the baby in the handbag at Victoria Station, the Valentine's Day premiere of 1895, the Marquess of Queensberry's rotten vegetables, and the actors from George Alexander to Edith Evans, Judi Dench and Stephen Fry who have made the play their own. Easy questions ask which two names Jack goes by and where he was found as a baby; harder ones dig into the character Wilde cut from the four-act version, the W. S. Gilbert farce he borrowed from, why Wilde's name was missing from the first edition, and how translators cope with the pun in the title. It is written for students of the play, theatregoers and literature quiz nights, and it works whether you know the text by heart or have only seen the 2002 film with Colin Firth and Rupert Everett. If you want the wider story of the playwright, BrainPickle's Oscar Wilde quiz picks up where this one leaves off. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the play, its author, its films and its leading performers, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
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Q 01What is the subtitle of The Importance of Being Earnest?
A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
Wilde originally had it the other way round, "a Serious Comedy for Trivial People", before flipping it in revision.
Q 02On what date in 1895 did the play open at the St James's Theatre?
14 February, Valentine's Day
Wilde arrived wearing a green carnation, and the audience rose and cheered again and again.
Q 03Which of Wilde's plays came directly before this one, making it the last of his four drawing-room comedies?
An Ideal Husband
Both of his final comedies were still running in London when his prosecution began, and both soon closed.
Q 04Which two young women do the heroes woo under the name Ernest?
Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew
The other pairs come from Wilde's earlier comedies Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband and A Woman of No Importance.
Q 05What is the name of Algernon's invented invalid friend in the country?
Bunbury
Visiting him is a handy excuse to escape social obligations; the name may come from a hypochondriac acquaintance of Wilde's youth.
Q 06The cigarette case that exposes Jack's double life is inscribed with love from whom?
Little Cecily, to her dear uncle
Algernon refuses to consent to Jack's proposal to Gwendolen until the case is explained.
Q 07Where was Jack found as a baby, according to his own account?
In a handbag at Victoria Station
Lady Bracknell notes that the cloakroom was at least on the socially superior Brighton line side of the station.
Q 08What surname did Gwendolen's formidable mother carry in Wilde's early drafts?
Brancaster
Algernon Moncrieff was likewise Algernon Montford until Wilde revised the play over the summer of 1894.
Q 09Why does Gwendolen say she could not love Jack under his real name?
Only a man called Ernest will do
Cecily later agrees, pitying any married woman whose husband is not called Ernest, so both men plot to be rechristened.
Q 10What is the name of Cecily's governess?
Miss Prism
Twenty-eight years earlier she had absent-mindedly swapped a baby for the manuscript of her novel.
Q 11Who is the rector at Woolton whom Algernon asks to rechristen him?
Dr Chasuble
The scholarly canon ends the play paired off with Miss Prism.
Q 12How does Jack claim his brother Ernest died when he arrives in mourning in Act II?
Of a severe chill in Paris
The story collapses because Cecily has just met "Ernest", who is Algernon in disguise, in the garden.
Q 13What did the governess put in the perambulator instead of the baby?
The manuscript of her novel
The baby went into the handbag, which she left at Victoria Station.
Q 21What did the Marquess of Queensberry plan to throw at Wilde on the opening night?
A bouquet of rotten vegetables
Alexander cancelled his ticket and the police barred him; Queensberry left the bouquet at the theatre door.
Q 22Where was Wilde on holiday during most of the rehearsal period?
Algeria
He was with Lord Alfred Douglas and returned for the dress rehearsal on 12 February.
Q 23What did Wilde wear in his lapel on opening night?
A green carnation
The Era predicted a long and prosperous run; within weeks the trials had begun.
Q 14Jack turns out to be the son of which relative of Lady Bracknell?
Her late sister, Mrs Moncrieff
That makes him Algernon's elder brother and, at last, an acceptable suitor for Gwendolen.
Q 15Where does Jack look up his father's name to discover he really was christened Ernest?
The Army Lists
As the firstborn he would have been named after his father, General Moncrieff.
Q 16What does Lady Bracknell call Jack in the closing lines?
My nephew
She accuses him of displaying signs of triviality, and he replies that he has finally realised the vital Importance of Being Earnest.
Q 17In which Sussex seaside town did Wilde begin writing the play in the summer of 1894?
Worthing
He borrowed the town's name for his hero, and may have found Bunbury in the local newspaper.
Q 18Which W. S. Gilbert farce is generally regarded as the play's most important influence?
Engaged
Wilde borrowed incidents and, above all, the gravity of tone Gilbert demanded from his actors.
Q 19Which character was cut when the play was reduced from four acts to three?
Mr Gribsby, a solicitor
He came from London to serve a writ on "Ernest" for unpaid Savoy dining bills; George Alexander asked for the cut.
Q 20Which actor-manager staged the premiere and played Jack?
George Alexander
Wilde had written the part for Wyndham, who gave it up so Alexander could recover from the failure of Henry James's Guy Domville.
Q 24Roughly how many performances did the original 1895 run last before Wilde's disgrace closed it?
83
Alexander even removed the author's name from the playbills, but the run ended on 8 May.
Q 25Which playwright called the play "extremely funny" but "heartless"?
George Bernard Shaw
He held the view all his life, insisting he went to the theatre to be moved to laughter, not tickled into it.
Q 26Which science-fiction novelist reviewed the play anonymously as one of the freshest comedies of the year?
H. G. Wells
Writing in The Pall Mall Gazette, he wondered how Serious People would take a Trivial Comedy intended for their learning.
Q 27W. H. Auden described the play as what in 1963?
A pure verbal opera
The Times agreed the story was almost too preposterous to go without music; operas followed in 1963 and 2011.
Q 28What did the cover of the 1899 first edition say instead of Wilde's name?
By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan
Leonard Smithers published it while Wilde was in exile in Paris; he wrote nothing more for the stage.
Q 29In which language does the Ernest/earnest pun translate most simply?
German
Ernst is both the adjective for serious and a given name; Italian versions have tried Franco, Severo and Fedele.
Q 30Under what title is the play most often performed in French?
L'Importance d'être Constant
Constant is both a virtue and a first name, giving French a closer pun than most languages.