Wilde’s Lecture Tour of the United States

One of Oscar Wilde’s stops during his 1882 tour of the United States was Yale College. The audience was puzzled but attentive, according to the Times, which estimated that more than a thousand people swelled the opera house on Chapel Street. Following ancient custom, one group of students tried to razz the speaker by hollering… Continue Reading Wilde’s Lecture Tour of the United States

De Profundis

by Elyse Graham First published in 1905 by an arrangement between Oscar Wilde and Robert Ross, who visited Wilde at Reading and later became his literary executor, De Profundis was written in prison over three months in 1897. It is a curious document: part apologia, part aesthetic discourse, part religious testimonial, part retort to religion,… Continue Reading De Profundis