Credibly credited to Wilde, and by someone who knew him: the actor-manager Seymour Hicks reports the reply on page 132 of his memoir, first published in London on 26 October 1910. But Quote Investigator ↗ has not located the line anywhere in Wilde’s own writings, so the attribution rests on a single second-hand account published after his death.
“It Is the Best Play I Ever Slept Through” attributed to Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). Earliest documented in Seymour Hicks, Seymour Hicks: Twenty-Four Years of an Actor's Life (London: Alston Rivers, 1910), p. 132, where Hicks reports it as Wilde's spoken reply on returning from a fashionable premiere. Quote Investigator has not found the line in Wilde's own writings. Via Quotle.info · Verbatim: “My dear friend, it is the best play I ever slept through.”
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In context
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Provenance
The earliest record: a friend’s memoir, 1910
Source
Seymour Hicks: Twenty-Four Years of an Actor’s Life
First published
London: Alston Rivers, 26 October 1910 · New York: John Lane, 1911
Page
132
Nature
Second-hand anecdote, printed after Wilde’s death
Innumerable are the witticisms laid at his door. What could be more delightful than his remark to the gushing female admirer who, shaking him warmly by the hand, said: “Oh, but Mr. Wilde, you don’t remember me. My name is Smith.” “Oh yes,” said Wilde, “I remember your name perfectly—but I can’t think of your face.” It was Wilde who, on being asked on returning from a fashionable premiere how he liked the piece, replied: “My dear friend, it is the best play I ever slept through.”
Hicks is recalling, not transcribing. Wilde died in 1900; the memoir’s title page records first publication on 26 October 1910. No play and no playwright is named in this passage.
Before 1895 — the window. If Wilde used the quip at all, Quote Investigator ↗ reasons he probably said it before 1895: he was in jail from 1895 to 1897, and his social circumstances changed dramatically afterward.
1898 — the joke in print, but not about a play. The earliest printed instance of the gag that Quote Investigator located is a Denver newspaper report of a sermon by Rev. Myron W. Reed: “It was the most exhaustive lecture I ever slept through.” See the chronology ↗
1910 — the earliest ascription to Wilde. Seymour Hicks prints the remark on page 132 of his memoir, first published in London on 26 October 1910; Quote Investigator cites the John Lane New York printing of 1911 at the same page. Internet Archive scan ↗
1946 — a target is supplied. Hesketh Pearson’s Oscar Wilde: His Life and Wit (page 196) reports the line as Wilde’s verdict on a piece by Arthur Pinero — the first time any play is attached to it. Documented by QI ↗
✓Public domain
Wilde died in 1900 and his own work is long out of copyright. The book that actually carries this line — Seymour Hicks’s memoir — states first publication on 26 October 1910, comfortably before the 1931 US threshold, and the Internet Archive’s record for the scan lists it as not in copyright.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What’s true, and what got added later
Wilde attracts invented epigrams the way a magnet attracts filings, so it is worth being exact. This one is not a fabrication — but three things routinely said about it go well past the evidence.
✕
The formatNot a written review Often mis-framed
The line is constantly reproduced as Wilde’s devastating one-sentence theatre notice. The only near-contemporary source presents it as speech: Hicks reports Wilde saying it to a friend who asked how he liked the piece on returning from a fashionable premiere. Read page 132 ↗
✕
The targetArthur Pinero — named only in 1946 Added later
Hicks names no play and no playwright. The Pinero detail first appears in Hesketh Pearson’s biography Oscar Wilde: His Life and Wit (Harper & Brothers, 1946), page 196, as documented by Quote Investigator ↗.
✕
The joke itselfA formula many speakers wore Floating gag
“… I ever slept through” was fitted to a lecture in an 1898 Denver sermon report, a picture in 1922, a Presidential message in a Will Rogers column in 1923, an opera in 1929 and a baccalaureate service in 1937 — a chronology assembled by Quote Investigator ↗. The gag travels; the “play” version is the one tied to Wilde.
✕
The paper trailNothing in Wilde’s own hand Unsourced in his works
No letter, essay, review or play of Wilde’s carries this sentence. Quote Investigator ↗ states plainly that it has not located the jape in his writings, while still concluding there is evidence he used it.
✓The honest verdict: one good witness, no document. Seymour Hicks — who knew Wilde and socialised with him — printed the reply on page 132 of his 1910 memoir, and Quote Investigator ↗ found no earlier ascription to Wilde and no instance in Wilde’s own writing. Credibly attributed; not verified.
Context
Why so much “Wilde” comes to us second-hand
Almost everything we have of Wilde the talker arrives the same way: someone who was in the room wrote it down later. He published plays, essays, criticism and one novel, but his conversation — by every contemporary account the better performance — survives mainly in other people’s books.
This line is a clean example of the type. Seymour Hicks was an actor-manager who moved in Wilde’s circle, and in 1910 he set down a handful of Wilde’s remarks from memory, this one among them. As second-hand evidence goes it is good: a named witness, a specific setting, published while plenty of people who knew Wilde were alive to object. It still isn’t Wilde’s handwriting.
Wilde died in 1900. The line first reached print in 1910 — in someone else’s book.
Why this is “attributed” and not “verified”
We reserve “verified” for lines we can point to inside a work the author actually wrote, or a transcript of what they actually said. Quote Investigator ↗ looked and reports that it has not located this jape in Wilde’s writings — while also concluding that there is evidence he employed it.
Quote Investigator adds one useful dating note: Wilde was in jail from 1895 to 1897 and his social circumstances changed dramatically afterward, so if he used the quip at all he probably said it before 1895 — some fifteen years before Hicks printed it.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Oscar Fingal O’Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish author, poet and playwright who became one of London’s most popular dramatists in the early 1890s, with Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest. His public life collapsed with his imprisonment from 1895 to 1897, and he died in 1900. Much of what we quote as “Wilde” is not from his books at all but from his talk — remembered, and written down afterwards, by the people who were in the room.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented ascription
Hicks, Seymour. Seymour Hicks: Twenty-Four Years of an Actor’s Life. London: Alston Rivers, 1910, p. 132. This is the earliest ascription to Oscar Wilde located by Quote Investigator, which cites the John Lane, New York printing of 1911 at the same page. The line has not been found in Wilde’s own writings.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘It Is the Best Play I Ever Slept Through’?” Last verified 1 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/it-is-the-best-play-i-ever-slept-through/