Many of the more serious critics of Wilde's day either ignored or were sparing in their praise of An Ideal Husband. By the time the play was staged, Wilde had many enemies, both major and minor. This was the result of his years as a dandy and his entire adult life as a cutting wit. On the one hand, he was thought frivolous and immoral; on the other, his wit often had as its target the very critics who were reviewing his work.

The critics of Wilde's time who were not impressed by the play thought it like its author: frivolous and lacking substance. Printed the day after the play opened, the review in London's major newspaper, The Times, is a case in point. An excerpt reads as follows:

An Ideal Husband was brought out last night with a similar degree of success to that which...