Oscar Wilde's grand U.S. tour, captured in dozens of newspaper interviewsThis comprehensive and authoritative collection of Oscar Wilde's American interviews affords readers a fresh look at the making of a literary legend. Better known in 1882 as a cultural icon than a serious writer (at twenty-six years old, he had by then published just one volume of poems), Wilde was brought to North America for a major lecture tour on Aestheticism and the decorative arts that was organized to publicize a touring opera, Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, which lampooned him and satirized the Aesthetic ''movement'' he had been imported to represent. In this year-long series of broadly distributed and eagerly read newspaper interviews, Wilde excelled as a master of self-promotion. He visited major cities from New York to San Francisco but also small railroad towns along the way, granting interviews to newspapers wherever asked. With characteristic aplomb, he adopted the role as the ambassador of Aestheticism, and reporters noted that he was dressed for the part. He wooed and flattered his hosts everywhere, pronouncing Miss Alsatia Allen of Montgomery, Alabama, the most beautiful young lady he had seen in the United States, adding, ''This is a remark, my dear fellow, I supposed I have made of some lady in every city I have visited in this country. It could be appropriately made. American women are very beautiful.'' Confronted at every turn by an insatiable audience of sometimes hostile interviewers, the young poet tried out a number of phrases, ideas, and strategies that ultimately made him famous as a novelist and playwright. Seeing America and Americans for the first time, Wilde's perception often proved as sharp as his wit; the echoes of both resound in much of his later writings. His interviewers also succeeded in getting him to talk about many other topics, from his opinions of British and American writers (he thought Poe was America's greatest poet) to his views of Mormonism. This exceptional volume cites all ninety-one of Wilde's interviews and contains transcripts of forty-eight of them, and it also includes his lecture on his travels in America.
Introduction; Interviews; 1 ''Oscar Wilde's Arrival,'' New York World, 3 January 1882; 2 ''Oscar Wilde,'' New York Evening Post, 4 January 1882; 3 ''Our New York Letter,'' Philadelphia Inquirer, 4 January 1882; 4 ''The Theories of a Poet,'' New York Tribune, 8 January 1882; 5 ''The Science of the Beautiful,'' New York World, 8 January 1882; 6 ''A Talk with Wilde,'' Philadelphia Press, 17 January 1882; 7 ''The Aesthetic Bard,'' Philadelphia Inquirer, 17 January 1882; 8 ''What Oscar Has to Say,'' Baltimore American, 20 January 1882, 4; 9 ''Wilde and Forbes,'' New York Herald, 21 January 1882, 3; 10 ''An Interview with the Poet,'' Albany Argus, 28 January 1882; 11 ''Oscar Wilde,'' Boston Herald, 29 January 1882; 12 ''The Aesthetic Apostle,'' Boston Globe, 29 January 1882; 13 Lilian Whiting, ''They Will Show Him,'' Chicago Inter-Ocean, 10 February 1882; 14 ''A Man of Culture Rare,'' Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 8 February 1882; 15 ''Wilde Sees the Falls,'' Buffalo Express, ca 9 February 1882; rpt Wheeling Register, 27 Feb 1882; 16 ''The Apostle of Art,'' Chicago Inter-Ocean, 11 February 1882; 17 ''Truly Aesthetic,'' Chicago Inter-Ocean, 13 February 1882; 18 ''Wilde,'' Cleveland Leader, 20 February 1882; 19 ''With Mr Oscar Wilde,'' Cincinnati Gazette, 21 February 1882; 20 ''Oscar Wilde,'' Cincinnati Enquirer, 21 February 1882; 21 ''Utterly Utter,'' St Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 February 1882; 22 ''Speranza's Gifted Son,'' St Louis Globe-Democrat, 26 February 1882; 23 ''Oscar As He Is,'' St Louis Republican, 26 February 1882; 24 ''Oscar Wilde,'' Chicago Tribune, 1 March 1882; 25 ''Philosophical Oscar,'' Chicago Times, 1 March 1882; 26 ''David and Oscar,'' Chicago Tribune, 5 March 1882; 27 ''Oscar Wilde in Omaha,'' Omaha Weekly Herald, 24 March 1882; 28 ''Oscar Wilde: An Interview with the Apostle of Aestheticism,'' San Francisco Examiner, 27 Mar 1882; 29 ''Oscar Wilde's Views,'' San Francisco Morning Call, 27 March 1882; 30 ''Lo! The Aesthete,'' San Francisco Chronicle, 27 March 1882; 31 ''Oscar Arrives,'' Sacramento Record-Union, 27 March 1882; 32 Mary Watson, ''Oscar Wilde at Home,'' San Francisco Examiner, 9 April 1882; 33 ''Oscar Wilde,'' Salt Lake Herald, 12 April 1882; 34 ''Oscar Wilde,'' Denver Rocky Mountain News, 13 April 1882; 35 ''Art and Aesthetics,'' Denver Tribune, 13 April 1882; 36 ''What Mr Wilde Says about Himself,'' Manchester Examiner and Times; rpt New York Tribune, 11 June 1882; Chicago Tribune, 17 June 1882, 3; 37 ''Aesthetic / An Interesting Interview with Oscar Wilde,'' Dayton Daily Democrat, 3 May 1882; 38 ''Oscar Wilde's Return,'' New York World, 6 May 1882; 39 ''Oscar Wilde in Montreal,'' Montreal Witness, 15 May 1882; 40 ''Oscar Wilde: The Arch-Aesthete on Aestheticism,'' Montreal Star, 15 May 1882; 41 ''Oscar Wilde,'' Toronto Globe, 25 May 1882; 42 ''The Aesthete at the Art Exhibition,'' Toronto Globe, 26 May 1882; 43 ''Oscar Wilde / Talks of Texas,'' New Orleans Picayune, 25 June 1882; 44 ''Oscar Wilde: Arrival of the Great Aesthete,'' Atlanta Constitution, 5 July 1882; 45 ''Oscar Dear, Oscar Dear!'' Charleston News and Courier, 8 July 1882; 46 ''Loveliness and Politeness,'' New York Sun, 20 August 1882; 47 ''The Apostle of Beauty in Nova Scotia,'' Halifax Herald, 10 October 1882; 48 ''Oscar Wilde Thoroughly Exhausted,'' New York Tribune, 27 November 1882; Appendix Wilde's lecture ''Impressions of America''; Bibliography of Wilde interviews; Works Cited
''Wilde was a source of fascination and provocation, and these assembled portraits reveal the rawness and the refinements, the pride and the anxieties, of American culture in the making during this important period. A vital and valuable book.''--Eric Haralson, editor of Reading the Middle Generation Anew: Culture, Community, and Form in Twentieth-Century American Poetry ''This stimulating work is an invaluable record of Wilde's speech, appearance, and demeanor. An excitingly fresh study of interest both to Wilde specialists and to general readers.''--Donald Mead, chairman of the Oscar Wilde Society and editor of The Wildean: A Journal of Oscar Wilde Studies
