Oscar Wilde
Irish Novelist, Poet & Playwright
In 1882, the 28-year-old Oscar Wilde embarked on a year-long lecture tour of America. During that much-heralded trip, he traveled to more than seventy cities and towns across the U. S. and Canada, lecturing on art and the aesthetic movement to intellectuals in Boston, farmers in Nebraska, and miners in Colorado. With his velvet coat, frilly silk shirts, and patent leather shoes, Wilde looked every inch the English dandy. He also shocked people with his open displays of sensuality (when he met Walt Whitman in New Jersey, the two men greeted each other with a kiss on the lips). Wilde's tour started with a bang on January 2, 1882, when he arrived at New York Harbor. Asked by a U. S. Customs official if he had anything to declare, he famously replied:
“I have nothing to declare but my genius.”