 After the success of Wilde 's plays Lady Windermere 's Fan and A Woman of No Importance , Wilde 's producers urged him to write further plays . In July 1894 he <unk> his idea for The Importance of Being Earnest to George Alexander , the actor @-@ manager of the St James 's Theatre . Wilde spent the summer with his family at Worthing , where he wrote the play quickly in August . His fame now at its peak , he used the working title Lady <unk> to avoid pre @-@ <unk> speculation of its content . Many names and ideas in the play were borrowed from people or places the author had known ; Lady Queensberry , Lord Alfred Douglas 's mother , for example , lived at Bracknell . There is widespread agreement among Wilde scholars that the most important influence on the play was W. S. Gilbert 's 1877 farce <unk> ; Wilde borrowed from Gilbert not only several incidents but , in Russell Jackson 's phrase " the gravity of tone demanded by Gilbert of his actors " . 
