Oscar Wilde in America :: I Have Nothing To Declare Except My Genius DUBIOUS QUOTATION: I have nothing to declare except my genius. There is no primary source evidence that Wilde made this statement. commentary One of the most celebrated quotations by anyone is the remark attributed to Oscar Wilde at New York Customs at the start of his lecture tour of America in 1882. But what exactly did he say, and what is the source of the quotation? Until my research some years ago the earliest source typically cited (if a source was given at all) was Frank Harris' Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions (1916), Vol. 1, Chap. V. For example, this is the source given in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999) p. 819, and in Beckson . However, in 2002 (in a review for the OWSOA now superseded by this article) I identified what is still the earliest known allusion to the remark in print or otherwise.

It appeared in a book published by Arthur Ransome a year earlier than Harris; the source is: The date of this book (1912) immediately provides us with a primary reason for doubt: The first reference to the quotation appeared thirty years after it was allegedly made. Not only is it suspicious that it took thirty years for the quotation to emerge, it is equally surprising that there is no contemporary evidence for it, as many of Wilde's remarks were seized upon by the press in 1882 and widely, often immediately, reported. There is also no mention of it in interviews given by Wilde, including approximately a hundred given to American journalists in 1882, many soon after his arrival where he was widely quoted. Neither does Wilde make any reference to the remark in any of the over 1500 letters of his that survive, including those at the time from New York that are often detailed. Indeed, there is no other written or oral record of the remark by anyone else during Wilde's time. When Wilde died in November, 1900, it did not take long for the first biography to be published.

This was: Oscar Wilde; the story of an unhappy friendship, (1902) by his devoted friend Robert Sherard. The biography does not mention the incident, but does report the " disappointed in the Atlantic " comment that Wilde did make upon arrival. Another biography In Memoriam, Oscar Wilde (1905) by André Gide, Franz Blei, and Ernest La Jeunesse, refers to Wilde's genius several times (pp. 49, 87, 91, 101) and even quotes Wilde on French customs officers (p. 55); but still there is no mention of the New York incident. The only biographical references to the remark are post-Ransome. So it is to him we must return. Below is what Ransome wrote and, unfortunately, he gave no source: Arthur Ransome (1884-1967) Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. Ransome wasn't alive at the time of the alleged remark and, indeed, never met Wilde.

In 1912, he wrote his Critical Study of Wilde with the assistance and support of Robert Ross, Wilde's literary executor. Can we take Ransome at face value? On balance I believe we can take Ransome at face value. There is no reason to suspect that the unassuming son of a history professor would have fabricated the incident. After all, his book, A Critical Study, is just that: a literary study—it is not primarily autobiographical nor makes any attempt at levity or sensation. However, we should note that Ransome cites the remark as reported speech and not as a direct quotation. Should we make anything of this? Does it, perhaps, hint at a conversational origin for the quote? Or is Ransome implying a figurative 'announcement' that Wilde was making by his presence, rather than a spoken one? I think neither: Ransome places the remark amid three statements, two of which are factual, including a known quotation ( disappointed in the Atlantic ) and he is specific about the circumstances. It is safe to infer that Ransome intended the remark to be an actual quotation, so he appears to be as good as his source. So what was Ransome's source?

It is reasonable to assume that Ransome came across the incident in his research for the book. It is unlikely that the story was in writing at the time—at least no prior printed or manuscript evidence has been found. It is more likely that Ransome learned of the story orally. He talked to Wilde's two sons, as well to others who had known Wilde, from whom, as he put it in the Preface, he gained "valuable reminiscence". Could the story have come from Ross? Ross generously allowed Ransome access to Wilde's correspondence and Ross' influence is apparent in the book, indeed Ransome dedicated to him. A good example of this influence can be seen in the relevant passage itself, in which Ransome cites a Wilde lecture 'Art and the Handicraftsman', which was a title never used by Wilde but erroneously created by Ross for his Complete Works some years earlier (see Lecture Titles ). As an intimate friend of both Ransome and Wilde, Ross, even though he did not meet Wilde himself until well after 1882, is the most likely source.

Unfortunately, no one to whom Ransome is likely to have spoken, including Ross, could have known about an incident at New York harbor first-hand. Thus we have a second major reason for doubt: The remark was based on hearsay. What possibilities exist? It is just possible that the story might have existed for some time before Ransome, perhaps with an element of urban mythology, having undergone a corruption or misattribution similar to several of Wilde's remarks. One is reminded that much history, especially quotation, is apocryphal: too good not to have been said. It would be a seductive notion if any oral history of the incident included Wilde himself, but there is no evidence for it. However, the idea introduces the possibility that Wilde, even if he did not make the remark at New York Customs, might later have claimed to have done, or perhaps wished that he had. It would not be unlike Wilde to revel in the public's belief of a rumor about himself. But if this is so, why did the rumor not emerge until 1912?

More likely is that the story emerged as Ransome was preparing his book, either intentionally created as apropos to Wilde (perhaps by Ross) or innocently misremembered. But lacking contemporary evidence it is not possible to be definitive about whether the remark is genuine, and reasonable inference must be towards doubt. Research for an earlier source is ongoing. © John Cooper, OWIA Who said what? Who said what? By Smriti Daniel There's a good reason why a man's bones are interred but his words live long after him. Across the millennia people have used words to express love and hate, to inspire courage, command loyalty and to share humour. Important or irrelevant, naughty or nice, the world's quotations are a veritable storehouse of wisdom. How wise are you? Take the quiz. 1. Who said, 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat'? a) Mahatma Gandhi c) T. Roosevelt d) Winston Churchill 2. Who said on arriving in New York, 'I have nothing to declare but my genius'? a) Oscar Wilde d) Dido 3. Which of the following is not a famous gaffe by President George W Bush?

a) 'I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them.' b) 'Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.' c) 'They [the enemy] never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we.' d) 'For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it.' 4. Who said: 'The reason this theme is so common in old paintings is that years ago Europe was terrorised by packs of enormous naked women. They would stride into a town, munching on pears, and threaten to knock down the cathedral if their portraits weren't painted immediately.' a) Jerry Seinfield d) Ali G 5. Which one of these comments on men did Mae West actually make? a) 'It's not the men in my life but the life in my men that counts.' b) 'I married beneath me, all women do.' c) 'I want to be alone.' d) 'It's raining men!' 6.

Which great artist declared 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free'? a) Leonardo Da Vinci 7. Which Irish writer said that fashion was 'nothing but an induced epidemic'? a) G.B Shaw c) Sean O' Casey d) Oscar Wilde 8. Which children's author wrote: 'Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open'? a) J.K. Rowling c) Tamora Pierce d) Jonathan Stroud 9. Which American first lady compared a woman to a teabag saying 'You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water'? a) Hilary Clinton c) Ladybird Johnson d) Eleanor Roosevelt 10. Who asked God to give him a sign, 'like a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank account'? a) Robin Williams c) Woody Allen d) Stephen Fry 11. Can you complete this quotation by Thoreau - 'If you would convince a man that he does wrong....'? a) Beat him unconscious c) Don't imitate him d) Do right 12. Who said: 'He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee.

If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.' a) Christopher Marlow d) James Baldwin 13. Which of the following is not attributed to Mahatma Gandhi? a) 'Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.' b) 'I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.' c) 'You must be the change you want to see in the world.' d) 'Liberty: one of imagination's most precious possessions.' 14. Which Spice girl famously told Nelson Mandela: 'You're as young as the girl that you feel'? a) Mel C (Sporty) c) Victoria (Posh) d) Mel B (Scary) 15. Who said: 'The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.' a) Adolf Hitler d) Josef Stalin Scoring Table 1. d) This is what, Winston Churchill told his cabinet when he became Prime Minister in 1940. Later he also said: 'You ask, what is our aim?

I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.' 2. a) Oscar Wilde. This famous playwright was known for his great wit and conversational abilities. His audacious flouting of social norms, both in his public and private life made him notorious. 3. b) Touted at the president with lowest IQ ever, George W. Bush is becoming famous for his 'Bushisms' - this "subliminable" individual has been caught using "subscribe" for "ascribe," "retort" for "resort," "hostile" for "hostage," "suckles" for "sucks," and so on ad infinitum. The final judgement can be made in his own words: 'I think anybody who doesn't think I'm smart enough to handle the job is underestimating.' 4. b) Dave Barry is a bestselling American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist known particularly for his column in the The Miami Herald. 5.

a) Mae West was one of those wonder women - an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and sex symbol, she was famous for her bawdy double entendres. One of the most controversial stars of her day. West had lots to say about men. For instance: 'His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.' 6. b) For Michelangelo, the job of the sculptor was to free the forms that were already inside the stone. He believed that every stone had a sculpture within it, and that the work of sculpting was simply a matter of chipping away all that wasn't a part of the statue. 7. a) George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1925) and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay (in 1938 for Pygmalion).After those of William Shakespeare, Shaw's plays are said to be among the most widely produced in English language theatre. 8. a) Harry Potter continues to make the 'evil list.' Author J.K Rowling says on her website: "Once again, the Harry Potter books feature on this year's list of most-banned books.

As this puts me in the company of Harper Lee, Mark Twain, J. D. Salinger, William Golding, John Steinbeck and other writers I revere, I have always taken my annual inclusion on the list as a great honour." 9. d) Eleanor Roosevelt was quite a lady. Not only was she a leader in forming the United Nations, the United Nations Association and Freedom House, she also chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Harry S. Truman called her the 'First Lady of the World' in honour of her extensive human rights promotions. 10. c) Also credited to this Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, musician, and comedian is the quote: "How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?" 11. d) Thoreau's the kind of guy I'd feel a bit intimidated around. His collected work of books, articles, essays, journals and poetry total over 20 volumes and his philosophy had tremendous influence in great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. 12.

b) Almost four hundred years after Shakespeare's death there are 15 million pages referring to him on Google. There are 132 million for God, 2.7 million for Elvis Presley, and coming up on Shakespeare's heels, George W. Bush with 14.7 million. 13. d) that's an Ambrose Bierce quote. One of my other favourites goes: 'I think it would be a good idea.' - Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization. 14. b) 'Golly Gumboots!' you may ask, 'Where are they now?' Well, since the group's break up, reunion rumours have persisted. The general consensus is that something will happen to commemorate the Spice Girls' tenth anniversary - whether it is a one-off gig, a greatest hits album release or possibly even a tour! 15. a) …and Hitler gave the world plenty of cause for fear. In the end, his racial policies led to the mass murder of at least eleven million people in what is now known as the Holocaust.

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Think Again Before We Had Social Media, We Had Dairy Queen The Time It Never Rained The Texas Rancher and the New York Banker Here’s An Apple Pie Recipe For Any Texan Holiday What You Might Not Know About the Texas Constitution One Texan In The Global Village 6 Reasons Texas Is Better Than Alaska The Top 12 Quotes From ‘Lonesome Dove’ How a Freed Slave’s Story Survives in East Texas When the Young Lieutenant Met the Wild Mustangs The Story of James Dean and the Shamrock Hotel “Let me be surrounded by luxury, I can do without necessities!” By W. F. Strong | June 29, 2016 9:53 am Flickr/stephcarter (CC BY-ND 2.0) Wilde, a noted architecture buff, quite enjoyed his visit to the San Jose Mission in San Antonio. Oscar Wilde said, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.” He would be pleased to know that we’re going to talk a good deal about him in the next few minutes.

Few people know that this great playwright, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, the author of “A Picture of Dorian Grey” and “The Importance of Being Earnest”, lectured in Texas in 1882. He was just 27 years old. He liked reciting his entire name like that to show off his Irish heritage. He said he had been shedding names since he was a boy and hoped one day to be known simply as Wilde. At 27, he was already enormously famous in Europe as a writer, theater critic, an architectural historian, a Classicist, and the leader of the Aesthetic Movement . He was known for dressing opulently in purples and brocades, often with an eccentric sunflower in his lapel. So there was great curiosity about what would happen when this Irish Dandy, as he was known, lectured in the macho world of Texas cowboys. When he had passed through customs in New York City, he famously said, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.” So, many Texans, being Texcentric as we are, wondered what the genius would think about our state. Well, for the most part, he liked Texas.

As he took the train to Galveston, through East Texas and Houston, he was fascinated by all the alligators lying lazily on the muddy banks of the bayous. His first lecture was in Galveston, which was the largest city in Texas at the time. Oscar loved it there. He said, “Galveston, set like a jewel in a crystal sea, was beautiful. Its fine beach, it’s shady avenues of oleander, and its delightful sea breezes were something to be enjoyed.” He said, “The people of Galveston were wonderful to me. They made me an honorary Colonel in the Texas Rangers. So I wrote immediately to all my friends and told them that they should henceforth address me as Colonel Wilde.” From Galveston, he traveled to San Antonio by train, in what he regarded as the monstrous Texas heat. Incidentally, he said that traveling by train, whizzing by everything at 40 miles an hour, was no proper way to see new country. The proper way to see new country was on a horse. In San Antonio, Wilde stayed at the Menger Hotel, which of course still exists today.

And even in 1882, the Menger was known for luxury. And so was Wilde. He often said, “Let me be surrounded by luxury, I can do without necessities!” He toured the famous missions in San Antonio. He said, “The San Jose Mission was the finest example of beautiful architecture I came across in all of the Americas.” He was quite moved by “those old Spanish churches with their picturesque remains of tower and dome, and their handsome carved stonework, standing in the…sunshine of the Texas prairie.” As for the Alamo, though, he described the “noble” structure’s condition as “monstrous.” He thought it a shame that Texas had allowed this most “sacred of shrines to fall into such Philistine conditions.” The Alamo had been, in those days, used as an Army depot. He lectured in San Antonio on architecture and interior design. He loved the local use of the natural wood and stone that was so available in the hill country, but warned about the overuse of horrid wallpaper.

He believed that a child raised in the ambiance of such wallpaper could later use it as a “defense for a life of crime.” Wilde was asked in Louisiana how his lecture in San Antonio had gone and he said that the women had loved it, but the men, not so much. Indeed, the men were quite a distraction, he said, “walking in and out with their squeaky boots and clangy spurs. The men were going out for beer, you see. Evidently,” he said, “men in Texas cannot survive more than an hour between beers.” If he were to return today, 135 years later, he would likely find us about the same. W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell ice cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

Tell it like it isTweet @TexasStandard or leave a comment here Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 � November 30, 1900) was an Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer. One of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day, known for his barbed and clever wit, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned after being convicted in a famous trial of "gross indecency" for homosexual acts. Birth and early life Wilde was born into a Protestant Anglo-Irish family, at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, to Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane. Jane was a successful writer and an Irish nationalist, known also as 'Speranza', while Sir William was Ireland's leading ear and eye surgeon, and wrote books on archaeology and folklore.

He was a renowned philanthropist, and his dispensary for the care of the city's poor, situated in Lincoln Place at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road. In June 1855, the family moved to 1 Merrion Square, a fashionable residential area. Here, Lady Wilde held a regular Saturday afternoon salon with guests including such figures as Sheridan le Fanu, Samuel Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt and Samuel Ferguson. Oscar was educated at home up to the age of nine. He attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Fermanagh from 1864 to 1871, spending the summer months with his family in rural Waterford, Wexford and at William Wilde's family home in Mayo. Here the Wilde brothers played with the young George Moore. After leaving Portora, Oscar Wilde studied classics at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1871 to 1874. He was an outstanding student, and won the Berkeley Gold Medal, the highest award available to classics students at Trinity.

He was granted a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he continued his studies from 1874 to 1878. While at Magdalen, Wilde won the 1878 Oxford Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna. He graduated with a double first, the highest grade available at Oxford. During this time, Wilde became familiar with philosophies and writings on same-sex love, and lived for several years with a male lover he had met in 1876, the society painter Frank Miles. However, in keeping with the social mores of his day, such activities were kept secret from the straight world. Marriage and family After graduating from Magdalen, Wilde returned to Dublin, where he met and fell in love with Florence Balcome. She in turn became engaged to Bram Stoker. On hearing of her engagement, Wilde wrote to her stating his intention to leave Ireland permanently. He left in 1878 and was to return to his native country only twice, for brief visits. The next six years were spent in London, Paris and the United States, where he travelled to deliver lectures.

In London, he met Constance Lloyd, daughter of the wealthy Queen's Counsel, Horace Lloyd. She was visiting Dublin in 1884 when Oscar was in the city to give lectures at the Gaiety Theatre. He proposed to her and they married on May 29, 1884 in Paddington, London. Constance's allowance of �250 allowed the Wildes to live in relative luxury. The couple had two sons, Cyril (1885) and Vyvyan (1886). After Oscar's downfall Constance took the surname Holland for herself and the boys. She died in 1898 following spinal surgery and was buried in Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa, Italy. Cyril was killed in France in World War I. Vyvyan survived the war and went on to become an author and translator. He published his memoir in 1954. His son, Merlin Holland, has edited and published several works about his grandfather. Aestheticism While at Magdalen College, Wilde became particularly well known for his role in the aesthetic and decadent movements.

He began wearing his hair long and openly scorning so-called "manly" sports, and began decorating his rooms with peacock feathers, lilies, sunflowers, blue china and other objets d'art. His behaviour cost him a dunking in the River Cherwell in addition to having his rooms (which still survive as dedicated function rooms at his old college) trashed, but the cult spread among certain segments of society to such an extent that languishing attitudes, "too-too" costumes and aestheticism generally became a recognised pose. Aestheticism in general was caricatured in Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta Patience (1881). Such was the success of "Patience" in New York that Richard D'Oyly Carte conceived the idea of sending Wilde to America on a lecture tour. This was duly arranged, Wilde arriving in January 1882. Although Wilde later claimed to have told the customs officer "I have nothing to declare except my genius", historians and biographers have concluded that this is an embellishment of Wilde's as there is no contemporary evidence that this occurred. Wilde was deeply impressed by the English writers John Ruskin and Walter Pater, who argued for the central importance of art in life.

He later commented ironically on this view when he wrote, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, "All art is quite useless". This quote also reflects Wilde's support of the aesthetic movement's basic principle: Art for art's sake. This doctrine was coined by the philosopher Victor Cousin, promoted by Theophile Gautier and brought into prominence by James McNeill Whistler. The aesthetic movement, represented by the school of William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, had a permanent influence on English decorative art. As the leading aesthete, Wilde became one of the most prominent personalities of his day. Though he was ridiculed for them, his paradoxes and witty sayings were quoted on all sides. In 1879 Wilde started to teach Aesthetic values in London. In 1882 he went on a lecture tour in the United States and Canada. He was torn apart by no small number of critics � The Wasp, a San Francisco newspaper, published a cartoon ridiculing Wilde and Aestheticism � but also was surprisingly well-received in such rough-and-tumble settings as the mining town of Leadville, Colorado.

[1] On his return to the United Kingdom, he worked as a reviewer for the Pall Mall Gazette in the years 1887-1889. Afterwards he became the editor of Woman's World. Politically, Wilde endorsed an anarchistic brand of socialism, expounding his beliefs in the text "The Soul of Man Under Socialism". Literary works He had already published in 1881 a selection of his poems, but these attracted admiration in only a limited circle. His most famous fairy tale, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, appeared in 1888, illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacob Hood.

This volume was followed up later by a second collection of fairy tales, A House of Pomegranates (1892), which the author said was "intended neither for the British child nor the British public." Though his target audience must remain conjectural, his fairy tales have been claimed to "encode the vision of an idealistic pederast, a man who loves beautiful youths; the style and content of his fairy tales offer a vision of love and beauty that urges a different aesthetic and moral relationship to the world and experience from other fairy tales for children." The pederastic ethos of the tales is claimed to evolve out of their focus on sensual experience and moral enlightenment. (Naomi Wood, "Creating the Sensual Child: Paterian Aesthetics, Pederasty, and Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tales") His only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1891. Critics have often claimed that there existed parallels between Wilde's life and that of the book's protagonist, and it was used as evidence against him at his trial. Wilde contributed some feature articles to the art reviews, and in 1891 re-published three of them as a book called Intentions.

His fame as a dramatist began with the production of Lady Windermere's Fan in February 1892. This was written at the request of George Alexander, actor-manager of the St James's Theatre in London. Wilde described it as "one of those modern drawing-room plays with pink lampshades". It was immediately successful, the author making the enormous sum of seven thousand pounds from the original run. (He apparently wore a green carnation for the first time on opening night). Less successful was Salom� the same year, refused a licence for English performance by the Lord Chamberlain because it contained Biblical characters. Wilde was furious, even contemplating (he said) changing his nationality to become a French citizen. The play was published in English, with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, in 1894. A French edition had appeared the year before. His next comedy was A Woman of No Importance, produced on 19th April 1893 at the Haymarket Theatre in London by Herbert Beerbohm Tree. It repeated the success of Lady Windermere's Fan, consolidating Wilde's reputation as the best writer of "comedy-of-manners" since Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

A slightly more serious note was struck with An Ideal Husband, produced by Lewis Waller at the Haymarket Theatre on 3 January 1895. This contains a political melodrama�as opposed to the marital melodrama of the earlier comedies�running alongside the usual Wildean epigrams, social commentary, comedy, and romance. George Bernard Shaw's review said that "...Mr Wilde is to me our only serious playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors, with audience, with the whole theatre..." Barely a month later, his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest appeared at the St James's Theatre. It caused a sensation. Years later, the actor Allen Aynesworth (playing 'Algy' opposite George Alexander's 'Jack') told Wilde's biographer Hesketh Pearson that "In my fifty-three years of acting, I never remember a greater triumph than the first night of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'." Unlike the three previous comedies, Earnest is free of any melodrama, or even of any plot worth speaking about. It is in a class of its own in the whole of English drama as a piece of pure, delightful nonsense.

(At least two versions of the play are in existence. Wilde originally wrote it in four acts, but George Alexander asked him to cut it down to three for the original production). In between An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde wrote at least the scenario for a play concerning an adulterous affair. He never developed it, the Queensberry affair and his own trial intervening. Frank Harris eventually wrote a version called Mr and Mrs Daventry. Wilde wrote another little-known play (in the form of a pantomime) for a friend of his, Chan Toon, which was called For Love of the King. The 1894 play also went under the name A Burmese Masque. It has never been widely circulated. One copy, held in the Leeds University Library's Fay and Geoffrey Elliott Collection is marked: "This is a spurious work attributed to Wilde without authority by a Mrs. Chan Toon, who was sent to prison for stealing money from her landlady. A.J.A.

Symons." (15, Handlist 148, Leeds handlists index) Wilde's sexuality Wilde's sexual orientation has variously been considered bisexual, gay, or pederastic depending on how the terms are defined. His inclination towards relations with younger men was relatively well-known, and biographers have often recorded Robert Ross (who would be his literary executor) as Wilde's first such lover. Ross, a boy of seventeen when Wilde met him, was already aware of Wilde's poems and indeed had been beaten for reading them. By Richard Ellman's account, Ross, "...so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce [Wilde]." Later, Ross boasted to Lord Alfred Douglas that he was "the first boy Oscar ever had" and there seems to have been much jealousy between them. However, Neil McKenna's more recent biography, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde (2003), demonstrates convincingly that Wilde was aware of his homosexuality from the moment of his first kiss with another boy at age 16, and had in fact lived with male lover Frank Miles (two years his senior) for several years before his marriage in 1884.

By the late 1870s, Wilde was already preoccupied with the philosophy of same-sex love, and had befriended several homosexual writers and law reformers. Wilde was influenced by the writings of gay-rights pioneer Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs and joined a secret organisation called the "Order of Chaeronea", referring in letters to the campaign for legalization of homosexuality as "the Cause". Wilde also met Walt Whitman in America in 1881, writing to a friend that there was "no doubt" about the great American poet's sexual orientation � "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips," he boasted. In his public writings, Wilde's first celebration of sex between men and boys can be found in The Portrait of Mr. W. H. (1889), in which he propounds a theory that Shakespeare's sonnets were written out of the poet's love of young male Elizabethan actor "Willie Hughes". A gay novel Teleny or The Reverse of the Medal attributed to Oscar Wilde, was clandestinely published in London in 1893. The novel was probably a combined effort by a number of Wilde's friends and Wilde then corrected the manuscript.

The Queensberry scandal In 1891, Wilde became intimate with Lord Alfred Douglas, who went by the nickname "Bosie". Bosie's father, John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, became increasingly enraged at his son's involvement with Wilde. He confronted the two publicly several times, and although each time Wilde was able to mollify the elder Douglas, eventually the Marquess threw down the gauntlet. He planned to interrupt the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest with an insulting delivery of vegetables, but somebody tipped Wilde off and the Marquess was barred from entering the theatre. On February 18, 1895, the Marquess left a calling card at one of Wilde's clubs, the Albemarle. On the back of the card he wrote "For Oscar Wilde posing as a Somdomite" (the final word being a misspelling of 'sodomite'). Although Wilde's friends advised him to ignore the insult, Lord Alfred later admitted that he egged Wilde on to charge Queensberry with criminal libel.

Queensberry was arrested, and in April 1895, the Crown took over the prosecution of the libel case against the Marquess. The trial lasted three days. The prosecuting counsel, Edward Clarke, was unaware that Wilde had had liaisons and romantic relationships with other men. Clarke asked Wilde directly whether there was any substance to Queensberry's accusations and Wilde denied that there was. Edward Carson, the barrister who defended Queensberry, hired investigators who were able to locate a number of men with whom Wilde had been involved, either socially or sexually. Wilde put on a tremendous display of drama in the first day of the trial, parrying Carson's cross-examination on the morals of his published works with witticisms and sarcasm, often breaking the courtroom up with laughter. For instance, asked whether he had ever adored any man younger than himself, Wilde replied, "I have never given adoration to anybody except myself." However, on the second day Carson's cross-examination was much more damaging; Wilde later admitted to perjuring himself by some of his answers. On the third day, Clarke recommended that Wilde withdraw the prosecution, and the case was dismissed. The authorities were unwilling to let matters rest.

Based on the evidence acquired by Queensberry and Carson, Wilde was arrested on April 6, 1895, in room no. 118 at the Cadogan Hotel, London, and charged with "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" under Section 11 of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, this being little more than a euphemism for any sex between males. Clarke offered to defend him for nothing at his upcoming trial. Trial and imprisonment in Reading Gaol At his own trial Wilde dropped any semblance of subterfuge and delivered an impassioned defense of male love in answer to the cross examination by Mr. C. F. Gill: Gill: What is "the love that dares not speak its name?" Wilde: "The love that dares not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect.

It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as "The love that dares not speak its name," and on that account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it. Wilde was convicted on May 25, 1895 of gross indecency and sentenced to serve two years hard labour. He was imprisoned first at Pentonville and then at Wandsworth prison in London, and finally transferred in November to the prison in the town of Reading, some 30 miles west of London.

Wilde knew the town from happier times when boating on the Thames and also from visits to the Palmer family, including a tour of the famous Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory quite close to the prison. Now known as prisoner C. 3.3, at first he was not even allowed paper and pen to write, but a later governor was more friendly. Thus during his time in prison, Wilde wrote a 50,000 word letter to Douglas, which he was not allowed to send while still a prisoner, but which he was allowed to take with him at the end of his sentence. On his release he gave the manuscript to Ross, who may or may not have carried out Wilde's instructions to send a copy to Douglas who, in turn, denied having received it. Ross published a much expurgated version of the letter (about 30% only) in 1905 (4 years after Wilde's death) with the title De Profundis, expanded it slightly for an edition of Wilde's collected works in 1908 and then donated it to the British Museum on the understanding that it would not be made public until 1960.

In 1949 Wilde's son Vyvyan Holland published it again, including parts formerly omitted, but relying on a faulty typescript bequeathed to him by Ross. Its first complete and correct publication did not take place until 1962 in The Letters of Oscar Wilde. The manuscripts of A Florentine Tragedy and an essay on Shakespeare's sonnets were stolen from his house in 1895. In 1904 a five-act tragedy, The Duchess of Padua, written by Wilde about 1883 for Mary Anderson, but not acted by her, was published in a German translation (Die Herzogin von Padua, translated by Max Meyerfeld) in Berlin. After his release Prison was unkind to Wilde's health and when he was released on May 19, 1897 he spent his last three years penniless, in self-imposed exile from society and artistic circles. He went under the assumed name of 'Sebastian Melmoth', after the central character of the gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer. After his release, he wrote the famous poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

On his deathbed he converted to the Roman Catholic church, which he had long admired. He spent his last days in the H�tel d'Alsace in Paris (now known as L'H�tel). Just a month before his death he is quoted as saying, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go." Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900. Different opinions are given on the cause of the meningitis; Richard Ellmann claimed it was syphilitic; Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, thought this to be a misconception, noting that Wilde's meningitis followed a surgical intervention, perhaps a mastoidectomy; Wilde's physicians, Dr. Paul Cleiss and A'Court Tucker reported that the condition stemmed from an old suppuration of the right ear (une ancienne suppuration de l'oreille droite d'ailleurs en traitement depuis plusieurs ann�es) and do not allude to syphilis. Most modern scholars and doctors agree that syphilis was unlikely to have been the cause of his death.

Wilde was buried in the Cimeti�re de Bagneux outside Paris but was later moved to Le P�re Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. His tomb in the P�re Lachaise was designed by the sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein, at the request of Robert Ross, who also asked for a small compartment to be made for his own ashes. Ross's ashes were later transferred to the tomb in 1950. The numerous spots on it are actually lipstick traces from admirers. Recently, a plaque asking visitors not to desecrate the tomb and a metal fence had to be put around the grave due to the admirers' enthusiasm.

Question: On arriving in New York, which writer famously said... I have nothing to declare but my genius?
Answer: Oscar Wilde