With all its faults, it may be said that _The Profligate_ notably enlarged at one stroke the domain open to the English dramatist. And it did not stand alone. The same year saw the production of two plays by H. A. Jones, _Wealth_ and _The Middleman_, in which a distinct effort towards a serious criticism of life was observable, and of two plays by Sydney Grundy, _A Fool's Paradise_ and _A White Lie_, which, though very French in method, were at least original in substance. Jones during the next two years made a steady advance with _Judah_ (1890), _The Dancing Girl_ and _The Crusaders_ (1891). Pinero in these years was putting forth less than his whole strength in _The Cabinet Minister_ (1890), _Lady Bountiful_ and _The Times_ (1891), and _The Amazons_ (March 1893). But meanwhile new talents were coming forward. The management of George Alexander, which opened at the Avenue theatre in 1890, but was transferred in the following year to the St James's, brought prominently to the front R. C. Carton, Haddon Chambers and Oscar Wilde. Carton's two sentimental comedies, _Sunlight and Shadow_ (1890) and _Liberty Hall_ (1892), showed excellent workmanship, but did not yet reveal his true originality as a humorist. Haddon Chambers's work (notably _The Idler_, 1891) was as yet sufficiently commonplace; but in _Lady Windermere's Fan_ (1892) Oscar Wilde showed himself at his first attempt a brilliant and accomplished dramatist. Wilde's subsequent plays, _A Woman of No Importance_ (1893) and _An Ideal Husband_ and _The Importance of being Earnest_ (1895), though marred by mannerism and insincerity, did much to promote the movement we are here tracing.
As the production of _The Profligate_ marked the opening of the second period in the revival of English drama, so the production of the same author's _The Second Mrs Tanqueray_ is very clearly the starting-point of the third period. Before attempting to trace its course we may do well to glance at certain conditions which probably influenced it.