—All the Blog Articles in One Place—
Louvre Online
The Louvre has recently digitized 482,000 works of art, but, of course, there’s only one Oscar Wilde. Here he is in that sole image from the Louvre collection, in a rarely seen caricature by the Italian and French poster art designer and painter, Leonetto Cappiello (1875–1942).
St. Patrick’s Day, 1882
“A PRIDE I CANNOT PROPERLY ACKNOWLEDGE” [REPOSTED] On St. Patrick’s Day 1882, during his lecture tour of north America, Oscar Wilde happened to be in St. Paul, Minnesota. He had lectured the previous evening at the Opera House on The Decorative Arts, and, on the following evening, he returned to the same venue to attended a St.Patrick’s Day gathering. St.…
Double Take
—Another Photo Mystery— You have probably seen both of these photographs on separate occasions over the years, and, if you’re like me, thought you had been looking at the same one—perhaps because Oscar looks about same in each. But when they are viewed together it becomes clear they are not the same photograph. Everyone has…
Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs
Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs, 1882—2022 One could be forgiven for thinking that an article entitled Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs is about Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs, meaning his lecture there on August 11, 1882—not an unreasonable assumption. But latterly such a conclusion would be only half right, because earlier this year the spirit…
Carroll Beckwith
A NEW CHARACTER IN THE WILDE STORY —by John Cooper and Erik Ryding— Sarony photograph #19 must have been a favorite of Wilde’s as it is almost certainly the one he was referring to when, in March 1882, he wrote to his tour promoter, Richard D’Oyly Carte, to suggest that a lithograph of himself would…
Beardsley 150
Aubrey Beardsley sesquicentennial —or more simply put, there is a lot of AB to see— While Beardsley’s brief career was cut short aged 25 by his death from tuberculosis, he made an impact as a brilliant and daring innovator who often caused controversy by using satirical imagery to push gender and sexual boundaries. On view…
Sharon Springs, NY
My research into Oscar Wilde’s 1882 lecture tour of North America has often found me in his large, and daunting, footsteps. It began over 20 years ago with a guided tour of New York City where Oscar spent more time than anywhere else on the continent; and my work has since encompassed journeys to many…
The Wildean
COMPLEMENTARY ARTICLES IN THE CURRENT ISSUE OF THE WILDEAN —A Publication of the Oscar Wilde Society— During the less furtive period of his post-prison exile, many young men passed fleetingly through Oscar Wilde’s life, most of whom are either lost to posterity or little more than unidentified footnotes. But two such acquaintances have recently gained…
L’Île d’Amour
Beg, Steal, and Borrow on Love Island During July 1899 while in retreat from a sweltering Paris, Oscar Wilde spent some time at a small hotel called L’Ecu on L’Île d’Amour (“the island of love”) at Chennevières-sur-Marne. He described the place a “a lovely spot—and island with trees and a little inn” at which he…
Broken Brothers
Oscar Wilde and Thomas Langrell Harris —A Guest Blog by Matthew Sturgis— In February of 1900, Oscar Wilde wrote to his young friend and admirer, Louis Wilkinson, lamenting, ‘I am very sorry you are in correspondence with Langrel Harris [sic]. He is a most infamous young swindler, who selected me – of all ruined people…
Something To Declare
A New Earliest Example of Wilde’s ALLEGED Remark: —I have nothing to declare except my genius.— In my latest post I referenced the godfather of Oscar Wilde researchers, Stuart Mason, in connection with his unique scrapbooks of Wilde ephemera. “Stuart Mason” was, in fact, the pseudonym of Christopher Sclater Millard, who produced Wilde’s first, and…
Rediscovered II
You will recall the rediscovered photograph of Oscar Wilde (similar to the one above) that I featured in this post — where it was effectively published for the first time in almost 130 years. The photograph had originally appeared in the March 10, 1893 issue of the Westminster Budget, in an article entitled “Mr. Wilde’s…
Interview With Natalie Barney
The woman Oscar Wilde met as a girl in 1882 who became the lover of his niece and had an affair with his own lover’s future wife. Confused? Then to understand the full intrigue you should read my post A Scene at Long Beach and learn how the story began with Natalie Barney as a little girl. Then…
Anatomy of a Cartoon
The Story of Oscar Wilde’s Infamous Curtain Call Take a closer look at the details of the above cartoon. It is one of the Fancy Portrait series from the long established satirical journal Punch and it appeared in response to the opening night of Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan at the St. James’s Theatre on February 20,…
Deepo
Nobody ever alleged that my allegiance to alliteration was anything other than alluring, so allow me to allude to this little Oscar Wilde story about the Liberal, the Lord of Language, and the ladies Labouchère and Langtry. Or perhaps it would be even more obscure, and thus more intriguing, to say it is about Henrietta…
Cowboys and Indians
Lecturing in the midwest, Oscar Wilde meets pioneers and native Americans This is Boyd’s Theatre and Opera House in Omaha, Nebraska, as it was when Oscar Wilde lectured there. If the surroundings look a little unmade (and Oscar complained about the muddy streets) it was to be expected—in 1882 the midwest of America was still a…
An Impromptu Lecture
WILDE LETTER REVEALS IMPROMPTU ARRANGEMENTS A previously unpublished autograph letter signed (ALS) by Oscar Wilde appeared a little while ago at auction in North Carolina. Aided by the letter’s evident authenticity and the fact that the consignor is a direct family descendant, it sold at auction for $5,500. The item is a note sent by Wilde to Anne Lynch…
First English
EARLY TRANSLATIONS OF OSCAR WILDE’S SALOMÉ Wilde’s play Salomé was published in the 1890s in two languages, and the bane of each was a lordly limitation. First was the original work that Wilde wrote in French—albeit with a little help from his friends. Rehearsals in 1892 for a London production based on the French draft…
Wilde Fire
In my latest post about Wilde in St. Joseph, I mentioned Tootles Opera House quite forgetting that I had blogged about its demise at the time. Here it is that post again. SAY IT AIN’T SO, ST. JOE. What a shame. The venue where Oscar Wilde lectured in St. Joseph, Missouri in April 1882, was destroyed by…
Pony Tale
Today is April 14, a date noted in history for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the sinking of the Titanic. Not that Oscar Wilde had much to do with either event, although he once met the former President’s widow, Mary Lincoln, when she was living in retirement in New York City; and two of…
Wilde’s Prison Interview?
Was Oscar Wilde Interviewed While In prison? by John Cooper With the kind assistance and guidanceof Rob Marland and Matthew Sturgis. * The artist Banksy has recently demonstrated that deliverance from Reading Gaol remains a popular concept. But, as you might imagine, Oscar Wilde’s real life liberation from the prison was an even more newsworthy event back in…
Cloak of Mystery
In charting the cultural rehabilitation of Oscar Wilde in my article Finding Oscar, I alluded to the first appearances of him as character on screen. I made reference to the well known bio-pics about Wilde released in 1960; before those he was in episodes of two separate UK and American TV series in 1958; and…
Rediscovered
A Rediscovered Photograph of Oscar Wilde In my last article I alluded to how that erstwhile sinner, Oscar Wilde, had achieved the exalted air of sainthood. Unfortunately, for collectors of Wildean memories, with that classification comes the saintly cliché that a good man is hard to find. And nowhere is that maxim manifested more in…
A Saint With A Past
A SINNER IN SAINT LOUIS During his visits to America in the early 1880s, Oscar Wilde was merely a controversial figure. His fall from grace was more than a decade hence; or, to employ his own ethical framework, he was still a sinner who had a future. This idea forms a part of Wilde’s redemptive…
Deepo
Nobody ever alleged that my allegiance to alliteration was anything other than alluring, so allow me to allude to this little Oscar Wilde story about the Liberal, the Lord of Language, and the ladies Labouchère and Langtry. Or perhaps it would be even more obscure, and thus more intriguing, to say it is about Henrietta…
Destroyed By Fire
In my now completed itinerary of Oscar Wilde’s lecture tour of across North America in 1882, you will find logged more than one hundred hotels or houses where Oscar stayed while lecturing, along with illustrations of all the different lecture theatres, music halls, or opera houses where he spoke. A commonality emerges among most of these venues,…
One By One
In a recent post I highlighted the difference between an illustration and a photograph of Oscar Wilde in the same pose—the result being that the photograph was the more authentic. But what happens when there are differences between two versions of the same photograph? In this case the image is Sarony No. 1—the famous iconic headshot…
False Bottom
Here we see an illustration from Frank Leslie’s newspaper showing Oscar Wilde in a pose reminiscent of those taken by Napoleon Sarony. Scholars were never quite sure whether the caption to this sketch which says “From a Photograph by Sarony” meant that the illustration was from Sarony (in the sense of an artist’s impression of similar poses)…
Sarony 3A
New Sarony Photograph Identified A rarely seen image of Oscar Wilde has recently been added to the series of photographs taken by Napoleon Sarony on January 5th, 1882. Its rarity is evidenced by the fact that it does not appear to have been been published in any publicly available print medium to date, nor anywhere else previously…
The Rest Is History
Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony, 1882 There is a pleasing symmetry in the idea of the flamboyant Napoleon Sarony photographing Oscar Wilde because they were both specialists in posing—albeit from opposing ends of the camera. So it is not surprising that they also had parallel views about posing.
Web Site Upgrade
BACK TO THE BLOG Apologies for the hiatus from writing articles for this blog while I took time out to attend to two parallel projects. First is my historical archive which was in need of an update to latest web standards and to address improvements to usability. Click on this link to Oscar Wilde In America to visit the…
Bridgeton, NJ
—ANOTHER DISCOVERED LECTURE— In verifying Oscar Wilde’s tour of America, one occasionally comes across previously unrecorded lectures, such as the ones at the seaside resort of Narragansett Pier, RI, a second talk given by Wilde in Saratoga Springs, and another he gave for the YMCA in Yorkville, New York City [1]. This last lecture in New York redefined what biographers thought…
I Can Wait (Revisited)
Oscar Wilde’s After-Dinner Rebuke to his Press Critics Originally published in 2015, now as rewritten for the Oscar Wilde Society newsletter. For membership go to: oscarwildesociety.co.uk/membership/ It is pleasing to see that recent Wilde studies continue to highlight the emergent nature of Oscar’s American experience, during which time he nurtured the art of public speaking, conducted…
Oscar’s Oyster Supper
Eating oysters in Connecticut is a big thing; and when in Hartford, CT, there was only one place to go: Honiss’ Oyster House. In 1981 the New York Times ran an article about the famous old place, now long since gone: It isn’t every restaurant in Connecticut that can claim – as the Honiss Oyster…
Making (Up) Oscar Wilde
“Making Oscar Wilde” by Michèle MendelssohnOxford University Press (2018) Reviewed by: John Cooper One of the most noteworthy contributions to the recent surge in Wildean material has been Michèle Mendelssohn’s treatise Making Oscar Wilde (2018). As the title suggests, it is an attempt to establish a premise for the shaping of Wilde’s persona—the latest in a history…
Mountain Lion
Oscar Wilde in the Catskills After traveling across the vast expanses of the American south for more than a month, lecturing in 18 cities, Wilde returned to New York for some rest and relaxation with friends at the exclusive Summer resorts of the north-east. On July 15, 1882. Oscar gave a courtesy lecture at the…
Narragansett Pier
—A Newly Discovered Lecture— In verifying Oscar Wilde’s 1882 lecture tour of North America, it was prudent to begin with the four published itineraries by Mikhail, Ellmann, Page, and Beckson. [1] Unfortunately, none of these chronologies agrees with any other, and each is either incomplete or wrong in various respects—so it has been necessary to make numerous…
Celebrating Wilde, and Howe
I don’t suppose many people in America have given a talk about Oscar Wilde in a place where Oscar Wilde also gave a talk. It is a feat more easily achieved in the UK where old theaters survive. But in America, so many of the opera houses and music halls where Wilde lectured have now…
Rupert on Popcorn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxAPb9w1xsA ‘The Happy Prince’ star Rupert Everett on channeling Oscar Wilde to reignite his career. For my review of the film, see here: The Happy Prince—(2018)
Back To The Wall
In a recent post I noted how Oscar Wilde and Sarah Bernhardt had stood in precisely the same spot when having their photographs taken by Napoleon Sarony. It was just a curiosity; but now Lillie Langtry makes it a mystery.
The 16th Green
Today is the birthday of a famous Irishman and, lest I insult your knowledge, I should quickly add that I do not refer to the young chap above—Wildeans need no reminding that Oscar celebrates his birthday today, October 16th. Consider instead a curiosity about this date in Irish lore.
The Happy Prince—(2018)
‘The Happy Prince’ Opens in America You could be forgiven for thinking that a blog about Oscar Wilde might not provide the most objective forum for a film about Oscar Wilde—perhaps being too close to its subject to see it as one would ordinarily. However, the opposite turns out to be true about The Happy…
The Green Hour
It was time for the press screening of The Happy Prince, Rupert Everett’s new bio-pic of Oscar Wilde’s post-parting prison depression, to be shown at the headquarters of Sony Pictures in New York ahead of its general release in the U.S. later in the month. I decided to prepare in a manner becoming the movie.
Twenty-seven
Oscar Wilde was 27 years of age when left England for America on board the S.S. Arizona. By the time he reached New York eight days later he was 26—this being the age he insisted upon in press interviews. [1] A simple mistake for anyone to make who was awful at arithmetic or a victim…
Your Slim Gilt Sole
Here are Oscar and Bosie in May 1893 at the studio of photographers Gillman & Co. of Oxford, whose establishment was at 107 St Aldate’s Street. That location today, to set a tone of bathos, is a Ladbrokes Off Track Betting Shop. This well known picture captures the boys relaxed and smoking, distant even—so apparently between arguments. But upon inspection you’ll see…
The Last Four
The Sarony Photographs It has long been assumed that all of the 1882 photographs of Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony were taken during the same visit to his studio. Indeed, in all of Wilde studies there does not appear to be any record of an assertion to the contrary.However, there is a convincing case to…
Same Difference
Here is an idle curiosity. When Oscar Wilde had this photograph taken by Napoleon Sarony in 1882, not only was he standing against the same wall that Sarah Bernhardt had stood against—but he was standing in EXACTLY the same spot.
Web Site Upgrade
We are approaching the end of Summer so I have returned to the Blog, and will continue posting in the near future. Please remember to join the conversation by having your say in the ‘Leave a Reply’ section at the bottom of each post. In the meantime, I have not been idle in my Oscaring.…
Philadelphia Freedom
The Digital Collection of Oscar Wilde Documents at The Philadelphia Free Library Readers will recall my visit to the New York Antiquarian Book Fair a couple of years ago where I was offered a very rare Oscar Wilde document. It was a typescript of the (originally) unpublished portions of Wilde’s passive-aggressive prison masterpiece De Profundis. It was prepared…
The Wilde West
My recent article about Stephen Fry as the young Oscar featured a video of Oscar Wilde as a character in a short-lived TV Western series. Surprisingly, it was not the first time this had happened. Back in the 1950s in the series Have Gun, Will Travel (1957–1963) Oscar again fell foul of local baddies in Season 2, Episode 12…
Young Fry
Stephen Fry as a Younger Oscar Wilde (in America) Stephen Fry is known for playing Oscar Wilde in the 1997 movie Wilde. The opening of that film shows Oscar arriving in town on horseback for his lecture in Leadville, Colorado, but the scene gives a false impression. Not because he actually arrived in Leadville by train; no,…
Anatomy of a Cartoon
The Story of Oscar Wilde’s Infamous Curtain Call Take a closer look at the details of the above cartoon. It is one of the Fancy Portrait series from the long established satirical journal Punch and it appeared in response to the opening night of Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan at the St. James’s Theatre on February 19,…
Homophones
It’s debatable whether the name Ernest, used punningly by Wilde in his most famous play The Importance of Being Earnest, was chosen as a late Victorian code word for “gay”. One the hand, the Wildean academic, John Stokes, suggests here this may be true “since the word ‘Earnest’ bears a euphonious relation to the [gender-variant] term Uranian”—presumably…
Quixote of the Queer
Textual Analysis for Students A verse parody appeared just three weeks after Oscar Wilde arrived in America. It was one many such newspaper items in 1882 that poked fun at Wilde and the aesthetic movement. It was notable for its affected and satirical overuse of alliteration. Although Wilde was known for his occasional penchant for this verbal prose…
Oscar Wilde’s Birthday Dinner
A Review of the Oscar Wilde Birthday Dinner, 2017 This Article First Appeared in Intentions, (New Series No. 105, Feb. 2018) Published by the Oscar Wilde Society http://oscarwildesociety.co.uk The twenty-sixth Oscar Wilde Society annual birthday dinner was held on October 13, 2017 at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall — a now familiar home for the…
Primary Sources — Defined
In my recent article about Oscar Wilde’s cello coat, and throughout my online archive of Oscar Wilde In America, I often allude to Primary Sources. For ease of reference, below is the working definition. [1] Primary Sources A primary source is the contemporaneous, documented, and reliable viewpoint of an individual participant or observer usually in the form…
The Happy Prince
THE HAPPY PRINCE :: WORLD PREMIERE —Watch Sundance Live— The 2018 Sundance Film Festival gets underway today, January 18th, and making its world premiere is The Happy Prince written and directed by Rupert Everett. It is the story of the last days of Oscar Wilde—and the ghosts haunting them brought to vivid life. His body ailing, Wilde lives…
Cello Encore
MORE OF THE MYSTERY SOLVED —Corroborating Research— In a recent article I established the literary source for the cello coat worn by Oscar Wilde at the Grosvenor Gallery. However, I left it open to interpretation whether Wilde actually did have such a coat tailored or, perhaps, just happened to have one like it. After all, there was only…
Oscar Wilde’s Cello Coat
A Literary Mystery Solved —A Research Piece for Scholars— While there continues to be a welcome variety of approaches to Oscar Wilde’s life, many of the incidents in the Wilde story tend to remain the same. One of the recurring plot points in most studies and biographies of Wilde and his circle, over the last 30…
The Canterville Ghost
The Canterville Ghost is a short story by Oscar Wilde which made its first appearance in America in The New-York Tribune on Sunday, March 27, 1887. [1] Unfortunately, I was too young to read the original. However, and to my shame, neither did I catch the 1944 film starring Charles Laughton, the 1962 BBC television drama…
The Oscar Wilde Bar
There have been Oscar Wilde bars before now: in Berlin, San Diego, Chicago, and, I seem to recall, one previously in New York City. There is a Wilde Café in Minneapolis, and a bar called Oscar Wilde 9 located, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, at #9 Oscar Wilde St. in Mexico City. Most of these pretenders, however, merely give a nod to the old…
The State of the Sunflowers
Oscar Wilde’s Reception in Kansas and the Sunflower Soirée. I recently gave a talk on the subject of Oscar Wilde and the sunflower to the good people of the Maryland Agriculture Resource Council at their Sunflower Soirée, a yearly festival devoted to the Helianthus annuus. Literally, an annual event. Between you and me, it was a wonderful occasion; but as there was a gloomy weather…
The New Jersey Turnpike
we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run. Casual readers might not realize it but behind this blog there lies a project: namely to chronicle Oscar Wilde’s tour of America in a page-by-page detailed verification of more than 140 lecture dates—and in that pursuit, it was time to investigate…
Time: The Present
I live in terror of not being misunderstood If Oscar Wilde really did live in terror of not being misunderstood—as he wrote in The Critic as Artist in 1891, he need not have worried. At least not so far as his plays are concerned, because there are parts of the texts now so arcane that they are almost bound to be…
The Pictures of Dorian Gray
In the East Village of New York City there is a bar called Dorian Gray and this week I made my inaugural visit. It styles itself as Simple, Cheery, and Charming—which it is, and that will have to suffice as a review as I was only there long enough for one drink. And therein lies a tale.
Purple Prose
New Book : Beautiful and Impossible Things: Selected Essays of Oscar Wilde Notting Hill Editions, UK (2015) | New York Review Books, US (2017) “…and over our heads will float the Blue Bird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never happen, of things that are not and that should be.”…
“Earnest in Town”
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia With its marble columns and lobby posters of productions past, the Walnut Street Theatre is a venerable venue; and what other theatre can claim that Jefferson and Lafayette attending its opening night performance? [1] Moreover, within the Walnut’s neo-classic Federal shell there is often the kernel of fine scenic…
Book Mark
Exhibition and Symposium Mark Samuels Lasner has long been recognized as an authority on the literature and art of the late Victorian era. He is also a collector, bibliographer, typographer, and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Delaware Library. To those offices he can now add the honorific of benefactor. For recently Mark donated his private…
Moral Equivalence
If I am to find Wildean relevance in topical US culture, there is a latter-day Nellie the Elephant in the room. And before proceeding, I should explain that twisted metaphor for the uninitiated. I refer to the UK children’s novelty song of that name, and in particular to the eponymous pachyderm who was celebrated in the oft-repeated chorus for going…
Vyvyan Holland
Declaring nothing apropos (except astonishment) I send this from America footage I recently discovered of Oscar Wilde’s son Vyvyan Holland. It is in the form of a TV interview alongside Brian Reade, curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, during a segment on the CBS TV arts program Camera Three about a V&A Aubrey Beardsley exhibition which had transferred to…
On This Day
O’Flahertie Will Get You Nowhere I recall learning the word polyonymous from this Word-a-Day web site—it means having many names. It resonates because I always suspected Oscar of being a confirmed and secret polyonymist, freely dispensing with at least three of his five birth names which he considered too much ballast for the heights he soared, and then changing his…
Wilde and Douglas (Kirk)
When we think of the name Douglas in connection with Oscar Wilde we usually have in mind Oscar’s golden lover-Boy of that ilk—we do not necessarily conjure up visions of the rugged American screen legend, Kirk Douglas. But today there are two reasons why we should. First, it is actor Kirk’s 100th birthday; so congratulations to him. Second, we need…
Finding Oscar
John Cooper expands on comments he made as a member of a panel discussion at the Oscar Wilde Festival in Galway, Ireland, in September 2014, in which he appraised Wilde’s legacy and his personal response to it.
November 30
The excerpt below is from Current Literature—a journal of the Current Literature Publishing Co. (New York) which published monthly periodicals from 1888 to 1912. This account is from an article in the October 1905 edition entitled “How Oscar Wilde Died” which was given to deny claims in a earlier issue that Oscar was still alive. Its source was the…
Wilde Fire
SAY IT AIN’T SO, ST. JOE. What a shame. The venue where Oscar Wilde lectured in St. Joseph, Missouri in April 1882, was destroyed by fire on Monday this week. No longer a theater, it may have been just another empty converted office building symbolic of a Midwest hollowed out by recession, but it was still there. Unlike so many…
De Profundis
If you have six hours to spare, here is Neil Bartlett reading De Profundis. All of it. https://youtu.be/BZv87dlDd_Y Related: King’s Ransome.
King’s Ransome
PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY ACQUIRES RARE TYPESCRIPT OF UNPUBLISHED PORTIONS OF WILDE’S “DE PROFUNDIS” On a balmy Sunday lunchtime last Spring I found myself in the refreshment area of the prestigious New York Antiquarian Book Fair. The ambience and the food were very pleasant, perhaps suspiciously so, which I should have seen as a portent for what I was about to discover had I not…
Richard Le Gallienne
Richard Le Gallienne is the subject of an exhibition in his home town of Liverpool to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth. The event is being curated by two stalwart supporters of late-Victorian authors and artists, Mark Samuels Lasner and Margaret D. Stetz—authors and artists themselves. In conjunction with the exhibition, Liverpool Central Library will bring together these and other scholars and…
Liverpool Exhibition
ANNOUNCEMENT: An exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of Le Gallienne’s birth.
Turning Points
The Judas Kiss focuses on two crucial moments in Oscar Wilde’s life I was asked by the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) to provide an article for their blog in anticipation of David Hare’s forthcoming play The Judas Kiss. It is republished here, slightly amended, followed by a link to a moving article by Ruper Everett on playing Oscar. The…
The Judas Kiss
Announcement Join us at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for The Judas Kiss May 11—Jun 12, 2016 Are you in New York this month? Why not join the Philadelphia Wildeans who are planning a visit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), to see The Judas Kiss, the play starring an acclaimed performance by Rupert…
Men of Letters
A.A. Milne and Z.Z. Top are not just at the opposite ends of the 20th century’s cultural and chronological spectrum, they are also polar examples of another kind. I mean, of course, in the alphabetical use of two initials as a form of nomenclature, which, as a device, often makes for a memorable moniker. Oscar Wilde, in his time, knew a…
A Moment of Gravity
You will recall that in my recent review of Wilde and Niagara I cited the entry that Oscar Wilde’s had made in the guestbook of his hotel on the Canadian side at Niagara Falls. Well, having visited the area myself, I now have an illustration of his inscription (above) and, to reiterate, this is what it says: the roar of these waters is…
St. Patrick’s Day 1882
“A PRIDE I CANNOT PROPERLY ACKNOWLEDGE” On St. Patrick’s Day 1882, during his lecture tour of north America, Oscar Wilde happened to be in St. Paul, Minnesota. He had lectured the previous evening at the Opera House on The Decorative Arts, and, on the following evening, he returned to the same venue to attended a St.Patrick’s Day gathering. St. Paul…
Niagara Falls
Next month I go to speak at the Oscar Wilde conference “Wilde on the Borders” at Niagara University in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Whenever I travel to give a talk on Wilde, especially to places such as in New York City, Brooklyn, or Philadelphia, where Wilde also lectured, I always feel that I am following in his footsteps.…
Wilde on the Borders
Wilde Event | Niagara University Wilde on the Borders: Symposium, Theatre, and Art April 2, 2016, Niagara University, N.Y. Located just four miles north of Niagara Falls, N.Y., along the U.S./Canadian border, Niagara University announces “Wilde on the Borders”, a day of lively academic discussions hosted by the English department which celebrates Wilde’s complexity through the…
Three Times Tried
The above appraisal is from a recent edition of the U.S. version of Antiques Roadshow, and features a manuscript sonnet by Oscar Wilde which has recently come to light. While it is a newly discovered manuscript, it is not a newly discovered poem. It is one from the Wilde canon which he retitled as Ideal Love and presented with a…
Guido Ferranti by ?
A rediscovered letter by Oscar Wilde informs his relationship with anonymity Wilde’s college exploits, his aesthetic entry into London society, the self-publicity of his American tour, and his pursuit of fame have all been well documented; and the story often distills to the crucial moment of his fall from grace, a short period in 1895 when fame turned to infamy.…
RBS
When it comes to measuring time, sixty is an oddly benign number. It records the seconds into minutes and the minutes into hours indistinguishably. But when the number is used to mark the passage of years—three score can give one quite a jolt. So when the occasion crept up on me last week, I was need of rejuvenation. An…
Convention Bending
Iowa Focus In Alice in Wonderland there is a “caucus-race” which involves all concerned running around in a circle until eventually everyone is declared the winner. With this allusion, Lewis Carroll gently satirizes the futility of political processes—which is topical while the US focuses on the US caucuses, which begin today in Iowa.
I Can Wait
Oscar Wilde’s After-Dinner Rebuke to his Press Critics Rewritten in 2019 for the Oscar Wilde Society newsletter. For membership go to: oscarwildesociety.co.uk/membership/ It is pleasing to see that recent Wilde studies continue to highlight the emergent nature of Oscar’s American experience, during which time he nurtured the art of public speaking, conducted his first press interviews,…
Début du siècle
Memorabilia of Oscar Wilde’s Friends From World War I Oscar Wilde, essential figure of the fin de siècle though he was, joked with Robert Ross that he would not outlive it. Oscar, who was usually right about everything, wasn’t far wrong: he died in November 1900. He left behind friends who were to belong to a new movement, an artistic circle I might…
Salomé
In a recent post I railed somewhat about the use of primary sources. Well sources don’t come any more primary than the recent discoveries of Wildeana that were made at the Free Library of Philadelphia prior to the Oscar Wilde season early this year.
Critics and Artists at The Rosenbach
To the Rosenbach for a talk about Wilde, Whitman, and Mickle Street Last Wednesday evening at the Rosenbach Museum and Library I attended a talk about Mickle Street, the new play that showcases the 1882 meeting between Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde. One of the presenters was the author of the play Michael Whistler, who explained how it had been necessary for him to invent conversations and…
Primary Sources
Contemporaneous. Documented. Reliable. Personal testimony in chronicles and memoirs has forever been the basis of recorded history. Like the legal status of eye-witness testimony, accounts created during living memory have an immediacy that often frees them of taint or nuance. Not all of it is reliable, of course, so researchers should evaluate the source, the subject, and the period before the facts. And we shall get to…
Useful Editions
Literary Metaphor at the Oscar Wilde Festival in Galway Focused though I am on Oscar Wilde In America, I like to keep an eye on the bigger picture. However, I know that to see the brushstrokes up close it is sometimes necessary to depart from topical and geographical constraints and visit the works themselves. So last weekend I attended the Oscar Wilde Festival…
Lincoln and the Adult Novelty Store
Wildeans will already be suspicious of this article’s titular double entendres, however, lest there be any misunderstanding about the direction of our story, we shall spare you any possible disappointment, or as the flirtatious Gwendolen might say: Lincoln is not Abe, nor is it a name that produces any vibrations. Instead, Lincoln and the Adult Novelty Store, in keeping…
Doubtful as Men
How the effeminate Oscar Wilde was likened to women in 1882 During his lecture tour of America in 1882, Oscar Wilde was often described in interviews and articles as effeminate. It has often been thought that Oscar was acting the part of the effeminate; certainly, he was playing up to it: his dress and manner coinciding with the “namby-pamby” image of Bunthorne from Gilbert &…
The Modern Messiah
A cartoon printed in the satirical magazine The Wasp to mark Oscar Wilde’s arrival in San Francisco When Wilde arrived in San Francisco he was greeted by thousands of people curious to see him. This cartoon, entitled “The Modern Messiah,” which appeared in The Wasp on the eve of Oscar Wilde’s third lecture in San Francisco [1], shows…
Cowboys and Indians
Lecturing in the midwest, Oscar Wilde meets pioneers and native Americans This is Boyd’s Theatre and Opera House in Omaha, Nebraska, as it was when Oscar Wilde lectured there. If the surroundings look a little unmade (and Oscar complained about the muddy streets) it was to be expected—in 1882 the midwest of America was still a…
Lillie Langtry’s Autograph
Piecing together history: Oscar Wilde’s mail arrives When I was preparing my recent posting about Oscar Wilde and his lecture in Bloomington during the local council drainage meeting, I was reminded that Wilde once wrote a letter from Bloomington. A moment’s research led to a minor historical jigsaw.
The Dilemma of Movements
The Scatology of Oscar Wilde’s Bloomington lecture Local councillors in Bloomington, IL had a committee meeting arranged for the evening of March 10, 1882, so when Oscar Wilde was announced to lecture later the same evening it was always going to be a tough choice: whether to attend the reported tedium of Oscar’s aesthetic lecture on art decoration…
Indecent Postures | Wilde Plays Cricket
The summer game is upon us with the reminder that in Oscar Wilde’s earliest surviving letter, as well as in his final poem, there is mention of cricket. In 1868, Oscar Wilde proudly wrote to his Mother that his school had beaten the visiting 27th Regiment at cricket by 70 runs [1]. Thirty years later, at the other end of his writing career,…
Identity Crisis | Book Review: Declaring His Genius
Book Review: Declaring His Genius, Oscar Wilde In North America, by Roy Morris, Jr
Oscar Wilde’s Pants Down Again
Another notable advertisement featuring Oscar Wilde on his lecture tour of America in 1882. This time his pants. Further to my recent post featuring advertisements that used Oscar Wilde’s name and image during his lecture tour, here is another notable example. It shows Oscar in a quite demure pose as if he had something to hide. But…
Oscar Wilde on Irish Poets
Oscar Wilde’s lecture in San Francisco on Irish Poets On this day in 1882 [1] at Platt’s Hall, Oscar Wilde delivered the ninth of ten consecutive lectures in California, and his fourth and last in San Francisco. As San Francisco was the only city in America where Wilde lectured four times, he needed an additional lecture to add to…
A Scene at Long Beach
The intrigue that followed a chance meeting with Oscar Wilde in 1882 A young girl who Oscar Wilde met on vacation in 1882 became the lover of Wilde’s future niece and also had an affair with Wilde’s own lover’s future wife. Confused? Then read on. It all began when Sam Ward, the author, gourmand, and political lobbyist who had…
Conspicuous (Even By His Absence)
Oscar Wilde could be found almost everywhere in 1882 The phenomenon of Wilde’s US ubiquity has been well-documented, most recently in David Friedman’s Wilde in America (2014) which portrays Wilde as being so intent upon fame that he had a strategy for achieving it—a view with much validity. Whatever Wilde’s personal strategy was, however, he…
More on Boys’ Names
The source of Oscar Wilde’s pun on Ernest/Earnest In an earlier article I attempted to show that in John Gambril Nicholson’s verse Of Boys’ Names (Wilde’s putative source of the Ernest/Earnest pun) there are other boys’ names with Wildean parallels. Research now leads me to a further connection. In a back issue of The Book Collector (Summer, 1978), there…
Mickle Street: Preview
Next up in Philadelphia’s Oscar Wilde season is Mickle Street Mickle Street is a new play about the famous OFOWW/WW meeting of 1882: Oscar Fingal O’fflahertie Wills Wilde and Walt Whitman. As it happens, the encounter between Wilde and Whitman took place not in Mickle Street, but at the home of Walt’s brother, George, in nearby Stevens Street, two years before…
Frankel and Earnest (and other boys’ names)
Nicholas Frankel’s scholarly edition of The Annotated Importance of Being Earnest I am fascinated by the editorial introduction and inter-leaf annotations in Nicholas Frankel’s new scholarly edition of The Annotated Importance of Being Earnest [1]. The publisher, Harvard University Press, tells us that Frankel’s running commentary, “ties the play closely to Wilde’s personal life and sexual identity, illuminating literary, biographical, and historical allusions.”…
“Oscar” the Opera | The Art Of Darkness
Oscar, the opera in Philadelphia The last time Oscar Wilde visited Philadelphia it was to promote an opera. That was during his lecture tour of America in 1882 when a required part of his raison d’être was to be the poster-boy for Gilbert & Sullivan’s latest offering Patience—a comic opera whose purpose was to ridicule…
The Portrait of Mr WHYY
Following my appearance on the truncated piece about Wilde on WHYY TV’s Articulate with Jim Cotter (the broadcaster decided against the planned full show on Oscar, but that’s television), I appeared today on Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane, WHYY’s flagship radio interview program that examines local & national news, current trends, and ideas. I was a guest along with famed countertenor DAVID DANIELS, who plays the Oscar Wilde in the…
A Wilde Winter in Philadelphia
Philadelphia is the place for Wildeans this Winter A catalyst and centerpiece of current activity is the Morrison/Cox opera Oscar which had its world premiere in Santa Fe, NM, last year to generally favorable reviews of its singers, orchestra, conductor Evan Rogister, and overall production values. Critics can look forward to an updated libretto for the East Coast premiere.
Oscar Wilde Goes to California
Oscar Wilde’s long and eventful journey to California in 1882. Those who have been following my verification of Oscar Wilde’s lecture tour of North America in 1882 will know that we have reached California. Oscar Wilde’s journey to California was a significant event in itself as it constituted his longest period of continuous traveling—4 days and 4…
Oscar Wilde’s Arrival in America
On December 24, 1881, Oscar Wilde sailed for America from Liverpool aboard the S.S. Arizona bound for New York. The reasons for his much-heralded visit seemed clear enough: to promote Gilbert & Sullivan’s latest operetta, Patience, while conducting a series of lectures on subjects of his own choosing. The ship arrived late on January 2,…
Not A Joy Forever
A cartoon depicting Oscar Wilde at the end of his TWO visitS to America in contrasting poses Oscar Wilde’s American visits resulted in mixed fortunes: he failed to make any material 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…
Oscar Wilde On Dress
OSCAR WILDE ON DRESS | LIMITED EDITION Limited Bibliophile Edition | Ebook http://www.oscarwildeondress.com SOLD OUT It is rare that an important contribution by a major author goes unrecorded. Rarer still if the author is Oscar Wilde, the famous poet, writer, dramatist, and much quoted wit, who has been the subject of continual interest and analysis…
NBC reports change in English law
I was consulted—in an extremely minor way—for this piece on NBC. Bravo to MSNBC and UK politician David Lammy who takes up Oscar’s courtroom justification.
Wilde Style
To accompany the world premiere of the Morrison/Cox opera Oscar in Santa Fe, NM, this adapted excerpt from my book Oscar Wilde On Dress appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican’s arts magazine Pasatiempo. http://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/music/classical_music/article_c776936c-f565-11e2-a96f-0019bb30f31a.html For more on Wilde and dress see:http://oscarwildeinamerica.org/works/philosophy-of-dress.html
Conference: Legacy of Oscar Wilde
Review of the conference: Who Owns The Legacy of Oscar Wilde? Wilde Conference at Drew University, June 1-2, 2012 A REVIEW by John Cooper So it was to Drew University (Madison, NJ) hopeful of enlightenment as to the nominal question posed by the conference. To the question of who owns the legacy of an author…
Oscar Wilde In America | Now on WordPress
Oscar Wilde In America | An Online Resource By John Cooper This is the blog of the non-commercial archive devoted to Oscar Wilde and his time in America, online at: http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org The web site includes: Oscar Wilde’s 1882 Lecture Tour of North America A Detailed Analysis of American Quotations The Sarony Photographs of Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde’s New…
The Oscar Wilde Blog 