The Long Good Morning

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Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance Of Being Earnest begins with two memorable scenes. The first is Algernon’s and Jack’s discussion about Bunbury, which they conduct while carelessly eating the sandwiches and bread & butter intended for Lady Bracknell and her daughter Gwendolen. The second is Lady Bracknell’s famous “handbag” interview with Jack who wishes to marry Gwendolen.

The question is: does Act I take place in the morning or in the afternoon?

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The Morning

The printed stage directions for Act I identify the scene as the morning-room of Algernon’s flat in Half-Moon Street.

The morning-room was a specific setting in a Victorian house positioned to catch the early sunlight with large, east-facing windows. It was a bright space often used for attending to household tasks and correspondence. It also served as the place for breakfast as a more informal meal.

So we are in the morning room, but the time of day being the morning is suggested in the dialogue. When Lady Bracknell learns that Jack does not know who his parents are because as a baby he was found in the left luggage at Victoria Station, she “sweeps out in majestic indignation” saying:

Lady Bracknell: You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

The jest about marrying a parcel is so striking that it is easy to overlook that Lady Bracknell’s parting words are “Good morning, Mr. Worthing!”

To which Jack, suitably nonplussed, also replies, “Good morning.”

So it must be morning.

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The Afternoon

On the other hand, the stage directions also tell us that Lane, the manservant, is arranging afternoon tea.

As the scene progresses, Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen duly arrive after already having called on “dear Lady Harbury” presumably in the morning. Moreover, to excuse Algy having eaten all the cucumber sandwiches, Lane explains that he went down twice to the market “this morning”. So it is likely to be afternoon already.

To remove any doubt, Algernon confirms the time of day when Jack accuses him of “eating as usual,” Algy justifies himself by saying:

Algernon: I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o’clock.

So it must be afternoon.

But if it’s afternoon, why do Lady Bracknell and Jack bid each other a “good morning”?

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The Explanation

The idea of what constitutes morning had a period nuance in Victorian times that may be lost on modern audiences.

The anomaly was explained by Joseph Donohue in the OUP Complete Works of Oscar Wilde Vol. X, p.924. The gist being that in several books of manners and society it is noted that making “morning calls” can be applied to all hours which precede a late dinner. One source Donohue identified sets the time for morning calls between the hours of three and six o’clock. And yet another between the hours of four and seven.

Perhaps the long good morning was a product of the idle rich who rose much later in the day than the commercial classes.

This would explain why Donohue also notes that Bracknell’s exit line interposes a distance of Society between herself and the ineligible young man she has just interviewed, who has no recourse but to respond in kind with a feeble “good morning”.

© John Cooper, 2026

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