Jack Worthing, the play’s protagonist, is a pillar of the community in Hertfordshire, where he is guardian to Cecily Cardew, the pretty, eighteen-year-old granddaughter of the late Thomas Cardew, who found and adopted Jack when he was a baby. For years, he has also pretended to have an irresponsible black-sheep brother named Ernest who leads a scandalous life in pursuit of pleasure and is always getting into trouble of a sort that requires Jack to rush grimly off to his assistance. In fact, no one but Jack knows that he himself is Ernest. Ernest is the name Jack goes by in London, which is where he really goes on these occasions—probably to pursue the very sort of behavior he pretends to disapprove of in his imaginary brother. Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, the cousin of his best friend, Algernon Moncrieff. Algernon suspects that Jack may be leading a double life, a practice he seems to regard as commonplace and indispensable to modern life. He calls a person who leads a double life a “Bunburyist,” after a nonexistent friend he pretends to have, a chronic invalid named Bunbury, to whose deathbed he is forever being summoned whenever he wants to get out of some tiresome social obligation.

故事背景是在維多利亞時期的英國，此故事出自19世紀的劇作家-王爾德(Oscar Wilde)所寫的一部諷刺世俗的喜劇。在戲劇大師王爾德諷刺又寫實的筆下，十九世紀英國上流社會一覽無遺。

單身貴族-Jack的生活非常優渥，同時也是Cecily的監護人，為免有失身分和盡情玩樂，他冒稱自己是“Ernest”。而他每次總是以接濟”弟弟 Ernest”為藉口，但事實上是到倫敦與好友Algernon吃喝玩樂…。而兩位情竇初開的窈窕淑女也不顧一切的同時愛上了Ernest。真摯的愛情披上非真的名號，遊戲人間的男女追求愛情的不顧一切，錯綜的愛情讓結婚的念頭持續猶豫不決…