The Second Mrs. Tanqueray was first performed on May 27, 1893, at the St. James Theatre, London, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Paula. It was a success in its own time, and was recognised as Pinero's greatest work. It is an absolute must-read for all students of Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, as an alternative and contemporary example of a play about a fallen woman.

More developed than Victorian Melodrama, Pinero's best known play is a tragedy of a "a woman with a past". However, unlike Wilde, Pinero does not treat at the issue of adultery as a social discussion, but as a crime that must be punished. His female protagonist, Paula, cannot be forgiven, nor understood, until she takes her own life. It is only with this death that the other characters understand their own fallability.

Aubrey Tanqueray, on the eve of his second marriage, entertains his three closest male friends at dinner. The dinner is designed as a farewell, as he believes that married friends' wives often do not get on. However, this is a masque for the real problem: his wife has "a past".

His bachelor friend, Cayley Drummle, remains after the others leave and to him Aubrey confesses the truth about "Mrs." Jarman, his future wife. Shortly after Drummle, too, has gone, Paula Jarman arrives bringing Aubrey a letter confessing certain details of her past, a letter which he chivalrously burns unopened.

We see the marriage a few months later, as Aubrey and Paula are struggling for happiness in his country house, "willowmere", in the company of Ellean, Aubrey's convent-reared daughter. She has returned to live with him, having faltered as she was about to take her vows. It becomes clear that the second Mrs Tanqueray has complex feelings for this step-daughter, and that Ellean cannot love her new step-mother. Paula is jealous of Aubrey's and Ellean's love for one another, and is anxious to win her confidence. However, this repels Ellean, who remains aloof.

To add to Paula's unhappiness, the neighbours, although old friends of Aubrey's, have conspicuously refrained from calling.

Finally Paula insists that if the neighbours will not visit, then she is going to invite Lord George Orreyed and his wife, also a notorious woman and a chorus girl, to be their guests. Horrified, Aubrey insists that she should not deliver the invitation.

To compound Paula's sense of being snubbed, their nearest neighbour finally calls, but to gain permission to take Ellean to Paris and London for the season. This inflames Paula's jealousy and sense of their precarious position in society's eyes. When Aubrey gives his permission, admitting that they themselves cannot give Ellean the social background to which she is entitled, Paula defiantly delivers her letter to the Orreyeds.

Paula finds herself utterly bored with her guests, but refuses to make up with her husband. Into this atmosphere, Ellean returns to ask her father's permission for her marriage to a Captain Ardale. Paula feels impelled to confess to Aubrey that the man who now wants to marry his daughter has been her lover and former "husband".

Ellean comprehends the situation and taunts Paula with the sort of "past" that she has already condoned in Ardale. In a final realisation that for a woman with a "past" there can be no future, Paula kills herself.

As the cutain falls, Ellean understands that her own lack of friendship contributed to the tragedy, and wails "But I know--I helped kill her. If I'd only been merciful!"