Abstract
Oscar Wilde, the great English exponent of aestheticism, reached this port last evening on board the Williams & Guion steamship Arizona. Shortly after the vessel came to anchor off the Quarantine Station on Staten Island a World reporter put off in a row-boat managed by two sturdy oarsmen, and although the steamship was not much over a quarter of a mile from the shore it was three-quarters of an hour before he stepped upon the deck of the Arizona. Prior to undertaking the mission he had consulted Worcester, according to whom aesthetics (the good old man gives no such word as aestheticism) is set down as ‘the science of the sensations, or that which explains the cause of mental pain or pleasure, as derived from a contemplation of the works of art or nature; the science which treats of the beautiful and its various modes of representation in nature and in art; the philosophy of the fine arts.’ Thus armed the reporter stepped upon the broad deck of the Arizona and was soon ushered into the presence of Mr. Wilde in a gangway about amidships.
The New York World (3 Jan 1882) p. 1.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience was first produced by Richard D’Oyly Carte in London on 23 April 1881. The opera satirised contemporary aestheticism; and the character of Bunthorne, the Fleshly Poet, was generally taken as a caricature of Wilde. Patience opened in New York on 22 September, and Col. W. F. Morse, D’Oyly Carte’s American representative, thought that the appearance of Wilde himself might provide useful publicity. He was accordingly booked to give a series of lectures, sailed on the Arizona on 24 December 1881, and landed at New York on 2 January 1882. On Wilde’s American lecture tour see Richard Butler Glaenzer (ed.), Decorative Art in America (New York: Brentano’s, 1906);
Lloyd Lewis and Henry Justin Smith, Oscar Wilde Discovers America (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936 );
Philippe Jullian, ‘Oscar Wilde en Amerique’, Revue de Paris Lxxty (Feb 1967), 43–50;
and Elizabeth Aslin, ‘Oscar Wilde and America’, The Aesthetic Movement: Prelude to Art.Nouveau ( London: Elek Books, 1969 ) pp. 97–111.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 1979 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mikhail, E.H. (1979). Oscar Wilde’s Arrival. In: Mikhail, E.H. (eds) Oscar Wilde. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03923-4_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03923-4_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-03925-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-03923-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)