Tag: Catskills

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Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs

John Cooper2 Comments
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 of Oscar Wilde materialized once more in the small Catskills’ town.

I refer to the local Klinkhart Hall Arts Center’s celebratory event ‘The Oscar Wilde Memorial Lecture’.

So proud is this artistic community of its Wildean connection that the occasion has been added to their annual Poetry Festival—the brainchild of Paul Muldoon, the award-winning Irish professor of poetry—to which distinguished writers are invited to read, talk about their work, and conduct poetry workshops.

And so the privilege fell to me to recapture Wilde’s visit to Sharon Springs by being invited to present the inaugural lecture.

Would I live up to the original Lord of Language?

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Article

Mountain Lion

John Cooper4 Comments
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 Casino during a week’s stay with Julia Ward Howe and friends at Newport, RI, (revisited here) and he did not lecture again for two and a half weeks.

During that time he:

— visited Long Beach with Sam Ward where he was to be found creating interest on the beach;
—cruised around Long Island for three days with Robert Roosevelt aboard his yacht, occasionally swimming, fishing and calling in at popular hotels;
—visited the actress Clara Morris at her retreat in Riverdale, NY;
—stayed with statesman John Bigelow at his summer home at Highland Falls, near West Point;
—vacationed at Long Branch spending a night as guest of former President of the United States, General Ulysses S. Grant, which must have provided a interesting counterpoint to his recent stay with Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederate States of America, at his home at Beauvoir;
—traveled to Peekskill to stay with clergyman and social reformer Henry Ward Beecher with whom he attended a church service and a military band concert.

After all that urbane socializing it was time to head for the hills for more urbane socializing—and a return to lecturing.

The social lion was about to become a mountain lion in The Catskills.

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