Not A Joy Forever

A cartoon depicting Oscar Wilde at the end of his second visit to America in contrasting poses

Oscar Wilde’s American visits resulted in mixed fortunes: he failed to achieve much literary advance, and although his tour met with a mixed reception critically, it was a great commercial success. We can see these fortunes reflected in the above cartoon from Judge magazine of September 1883.

On the left Oscar is shown surrounded by lilies and sunflowers (the floral emblems of the aesthetic movement), and recognizing the profits of his 1882 lecture tour, he is showered with gold. Very much the 1882 Wilde.

On the right we see him with his bags packed at Castle Garden, the receiving station at New York. Now with his hair cut short, and somewhat shabbier, this is cartoonist’s impression of the Oscar that America bade farewell to, and under his arm is Vera, the play he unsuccessfully staged in New York in August 1883.

The caption, A THING OF BEAUTY NOT A JOY FOREVER, is a reference to John Keats, a favorite of Wilde, whose epic poem Endymion begins “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever”.

The Judge was a weekly magazine published in the United States from 1881 to 1947. It was launched by artists who had seceded from its rival Puck. The founders included cartoonist James Albert Wales, dime novels publisher Frank Tousey and author George H. Jessop. The first printing was on October 29, 1881 and while it did well initially, it soon had trouble competing with Puck. But by the 1900s, the magazine had become successful, reaching a circulation of 100,000 by 1912. Harold Ross, editor of Judge between April 5 and August 2, 1924 used his experience on the magazine to start his own in 1925, The New Yorker. The success of The New Yorker, as well as the depression, put pressure on the magazine: it became a monthly in 1932 and ceased circulation in 1947.