Aesthetic period door plaque. Oscar Wilde Bar, New York City.
There have been Oscar Wilde bars before now: in Berlin, San Diego, Chicago, and, I seem to recall, one previously in New York City.There is a Wilde Café in Minneapolis,and a bar called Oscar Wilde 9 located, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, at #9 Oscar Wilde St. in Mexico City.
Most of these pretenders, however, merely give a nod to the old boy by borrowing his name. One or two, such as Wilde’s Restaurantin The Lodge at Ashford Castle, in Cong, Ireland, and the Oscar Wilde room at the Café Royal in Piccadilly, London, try a little harder to embody Oscar’s maxim that moderation is a fatal thing, and nothing succeeds like excess.
Raising The Bar
But believe me, none of them, past or present, comes remotely close to the lavishness to be found at the newOscar Wilde Bar in New York City.
Philadelphia Library Acquires Rare Typescript of “De Profundis”
On a balmy Sunday lunchtime last Spring I found m yself in the refreshment area of the prestigious New York Antiquarian Book Fair. A kindly stranger asked me: “Are you a dealer or a collector?” with an air of inevitability that suggested a third alternative did not exist. As I was such a third alternative my response: “I’m just browsing.” was designed to replace the probability of being neither with the possibility of being either.
However, it soon became apparent to me, if not to my new friend, that even the self-imposed rank of ‘browser‘ wildly overstated my standing as a potential customer.
Richard Le Gallienne is the subject of an exhibition in his home town of Liverpool to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth. The event is being curated by two stalwart supporters of late-Victorian authors and artists, Mark Samuels Lasner and Margaret D. Stetz—authors and artists themselves.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Liverpool Central Library will bring together these and other scholars and collectors from the UK and the US for a one-day symposium about the city as a literary and cultural centre at the end of the 19th century.
Speakers at the symposium will address topics such as Liverpool and the late-Victorian lecture circuit; the actress Dame Ellen Terry and her theatrical tours in Liverpool; Robert Louis Stevenson’s connections to Liverpool; the career of Sir William Watson as a poet from Liverpool; J. M. Whistler’s links to Frederick Leyland and to Speke Hall; Gerard Manley Hopkins’s years as a priest in Liverpool; bibliomania and the book-collecting culture of late-Victorian Liverpool.
A signature focus of the exhibition, however, is the connection between Oscar Wilde and the Liverpool-born writer, Richard Le Gallienne—a relationship that began with their exchanging books of poetry, Wilde inscribing his: “To Richard le Gallienne, poet and lover, from Oscar Wilde / a summer day in June ’88.”
Much has been made by Neil McKenna of this early liaison. Indeed, the pair continued to exchange poetry and, along with it, much sentiment. One such was a poem given by Le Gallienne to Wilde as a ‘love token’, as he put it. However, the case for reorientation is that Le Gallienne was thrice married and wrote erotic poetry about women too, such as this homage to the olfactory appeal of their undergarments, as the euphemist might describe it.
Le Gallienne visited United States several times, eventually becoming a resident, and while the focus on him will no doubt enhance an appreciation of the relationship between Wilde and his acolyte, few will realize how close Le Gallienne came, on one such visit, to undermining it [1]:
To coin a phrase, to lose one book may be regarded as a misfortune, however, a more informed observer of Le Gallienne’s habits would simply conclude the likely carelessness of his being absinthe minded.
I prefer the more prosaic view that by seemingly carrying Wilde’s Poems around with him for thirty-odd years Poor Richard had eventually fallen under the thrall of its contents:
I did but touch the honey of romance — And must I lose a soul’s inheritance? Helas!, Oscar Wilde, 1881.
The exhibition runs through the end of October.
[1] The Publishers Weekly, Volume 101. F. Leypoldt, 1922.
Tom Colley, Charlie Rowe and Rupert Everett in The Judas Kiss. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann.
Announcement
Join us at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for The Judas Kiss May 11—Jun 12, 2016
Are you in New York this month?
Why not join the Philadelphia Wildeans who are planning a visit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), to see The Judas Kiss, the play starring an acclaimed performance by Rupert Everett as Oscar Wilde.
To get a flavor of the piece visit the BAM blog starting with my guest article here.
We are hoping that all Wildeans can join us to make an occasion of it.
To express interest and availability please email me in the first instance as I am arranging the date, and a possible a group rate and shared transportation.
You may recall that in my recent review of Wilde and Niagara I cited the entry that Oscar Wilde’s had made in the guestbook of his hotel on the Canadian side at Niagara Falls.
Well, having visited the area myself, I now have an illustration of his inscription (above) and, to reiterate, this is what it says:
the roar of these waters is like the roar when the “mighty wave democracy breaks against the shores where kings lie couched at ease.”
When Oscar wrote this he was doing several things at once.
Next month I go to speak at the Oscar Wilde conference “Wilde on the Borders” at Niagara University in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Whenever I travel to give a talk on Wilde, especially to places such as in New York City, Brooklyn, or Philadelphia, where Wilde also lectured, I always feel that I am following in his footsteps. After all, we share the same mission: that of promoting Oscar Wilde.
Going With The Flow
It is the now the turn of Niagara Falls, and, although Wilde did not speak publicly there (he lectured in nearby in Buffalo, New York), he did take a sojourn from his tour to visit Niagara and play tourist for a couple of days.
A rediscovered letter by Oscar Wilde informs his relationship with anonymity
Wilde’s college exploits, his aesthetic entry into London society, the self-publicity of his American tour, and his pursuit of fame have all been well documented; and the story often distills to the crucial moment of his fall from grace, a short period in 1895 when fame turned to infamy.
But there is a more enduring, more subtle, and underlying theme that began with Wilde’s desire for the opposite: a journey through his art and life towards an imperative for anonymity.
It is pleasing to see that recent Wilde studies continue to highlight the emergent nature of Oscar’s American experience, during which time he nurtured the art of public speaking, conducted his first press interviews, staged his first play, had his iconic photographs taken, and stockpiled—to use an American word—material for his future epigrams and works.
But there is a crucial American beginning for Oscar that has been under-appreciated: I refer to his first brush with literary society. It occurred during an event at 149 Fifth Avenue in New York City, the then home of an organisation of journalists known as the Lotos Club.
On December 24, 1881, Oscar Wilde sailed for America from Liverpool aboard the S.S. Arizona bound for New York. The reasons for his much-heralded visit seemed clear enough: to promote Gilbert & Sullivan’s latest operetta, Patience, while conducting a series of lectures on subjects of his own choosing.
The ship arrived late on January 2, 1882, and lay at quarantine overnight. On the morning of January 3, the Arizona pulled into its dock, and passengers headed for the customs shed at Castle Garden, which was the point of entry for visitors to NewYork and a major receiving station for immigrants prior to the opening of Ellis Island some ten years later.
