A Three Volume Novel by Miss Laetitia Prism

Thanks very much to Marianne Majerus and Acres Wild Landscape & Garden Design 

Title: A Three Volume Novel 

Author: Miss Laetitia Prism

Publisher: not known 

Source book: The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde 

I was reminded this morning of something that I must have known for ages, but had completely forgotten about. There is a fictional book, in three volumes, to be found within Oscar Wilde’s most famous play: The Importance of Being Earnest. I have seen the 1952 film dozens of times, the 2002 film at least twice, and I’ve seen it on stage too so I ought to remember the plot fairly well.

Miss Prism, once a nursery maid, is now governess to Miss Cicely Cardew, the wealthy young ward of Mr Jack Worthing. Thirty years ago, when caring for the son of a certain General Moncreif, Miss Prism devoted her limited unoccupied time to writing a novel. 

In a moment of absentmindedness she deposited her manuscript, which Lady Bracknell describes as being of more than usually revolting sentimentality, into the child’s pram, and put the baby in a black leather handbag, which she abandoned at the left luggage office at Victoria Station.

This is unfortunately all we know of Miss Prism’s three volume novel.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a very well known play full of well known quotes, the best known being Lady Bracknell’s exclamation “A handbag!” when she learns that her daughter’s suitor had a somewhat unorthodox start in life.

The play was first performed in 1895, er… see the first few paragraphs of this Wikipedia article, but it just goes to show that fictional books within books or plays, is no new thing. Well, Shakespeare had a couple, didn’t he?

Thanks to Marianne Majerus and Acres Wild Landscape & Garden Design