Wilde's three Society comedies were produced by different managers: Lady Windermere's Fan by George Alexander at the St James's Theatre (20 February 1892), A Woman of No Importance by Herbert Beerbohm Tree (19 April 1893) and An Ideal Husband (3 January 1895) by Lewis Waller, both at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Had Henry James's Guy Domville not been a failure and left Alexander with a gap in his season, Wilde would have added Charles Wyndham and the Criterion Theatre to his list with The Importance of Being Earnest. In the months before his career collapsed in the witness box of the Queensberry libel trial, he was sketching out a new play of modern life for Alexander, the Gerald Lancing scenario which Frank Harris later fleshed out as Mr and Mrs Daventry; and negotiating with American producers such as Albert Palmer about a play ' “with no real serious interest” - just a comedy', and with Charles Frohman for a 'modern “School for Scandal”' style of play. This flurry of activity indicates both Wilde's perceived marketability on both sides of the Atlantic and his own growing confidence in a genre he had only taken up in 1891, in fact at Alexander's invitation. 'I wonder can I do it in a week, or will it take three?' he reportedly commented to Frank Harris. 'It ought not to take long to beat the Pineros and the Joneses.'

Writing to Alexander in February 1891, Wilde offered a rather different attitude towards his progress on Lady Windermere's Fan: 'I am not satisfied with myself or my work. I can't get a grip of the play yet: I can't get my people real... I am very sorry, but artistic work can't be done unless one is in the mood; certainly my work can't. Sometimes I spend months over a thing, and don't do any good; at other times I write a thing in a fortnight' (L 282).