The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

In Act I of The Importance of Being Earnest, Algernon has found a cigarette case inscribed to “Uncle Jack” and forces his friend, whom he knows as Ernest, to explain. Jack confesses: in the country, as guardian to young Cecily Cardew, he must adopt “a very high moral tone”; to escape to town, he has invented a wicked younger brother named Ernest. “That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple,” he concludes.

Algernon turns the stock phrase inside out, adding that modern life would be very tedious if the truth were either, “and modern literature a complete impossibility!” Then he reveals his own trick: an invented invalid friend, Bunbury, who lets him go down to the country whenever he chooses.

The comedy opened in London on 14 February 1895. Within two months, Wilde’s libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry had collapsed, leading to his trials and imprisonment. The line sums up a play in which everyone lies, until Jack discovers that his name really is Ernest.

The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I (Algernon), 1895

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