That was one of Wilde's...

[divan]

What was Oscar's best work?

[vittoria]

I think it is a matter of opinion, but the only work of his I have ever liked was The Importance of being Ernest. (I have seen two other plays of his I think, read some short stories and the Ballad of Reading Gaol),

[incitatus]

I would say that De Profundis or The Ballad of reading gaol were the best. They were the only works where the emotions of the author had an impact. Earnest is very good, but it always feels false to me..."We live in an age of surfaces" indeed.

[homer]

Scholar, aesthete and brilliant social observer, Oscar Wilde wrote plays, novels, poetry, children's stories, short stories, letters and diaries. Some of them are very hard work, but pretty much all contain moments of brilliance. And of course he produced some of the finest one-liners that the modern world has know - which inspired the Monty Python sketch that your title alludes to. The Oxford Companion to English Literature hails his commercial successes as Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895). It acclaims The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) as 'his masterpiece'.