What did Miss Prism once write?

• A. The 3-volume novel
• B. A diary
• C. A poem
• D. A short story

Answer: (A)

Miss Prism’s past as a writer is the joke Wilde builds on here. She calmly reveals that when she was younger she authored a three-volume novel, a detail that stacks humor on top of the character’s prim, respectable image. The humor depends on the grand, almost pompous idea of a governess turning out to have produced a lengthy, ambitious work of fiction—something that Victorian readers would recognize as a serious literary undertaking. This specific revelation—she wrote a three-volume novel—fits the scene and Wilde’s satire about how appearances can mask surprising, even indulgent, ambitions.

The other options don’t match what the play says. A diary, a poem, or a short story aren’t the work she mentions in this moment, so they don’t capture the exact joke Wilde is making about Miss Prism’s past.