Editing Oscar Wilde (section)

== Apprenticeship of an aesthete: 1880s ==

=== Debut in society ===
[[File:Oscar Wilde by Elliott & Fry 1881.jpg|thumb|upright|Photograph by [[Elliott & Fry]] of Baker Street, London, 1881]]
[[File:Punch - Oscar Wilde.png|thumb|upright|alt=A hand-drawn cartoon of Wilde, he face depicted in a wilted sunflower standing in a vase. His face is sad and inclined towards a letter on the floor. A larger china vase, inscribed "Waste..." is placed behind him, and an open cigarette case to his left.|1881 [[caricature]] in ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'', the caption reads: "O.W.", "O, I feel just as happy as a bright sunflower!", ''Lays of [[Christy's Minstrels|Christy Minstrelsy]]'', "Æsthete of Æsthetes!/What's in a name?/The poet is Wilde/But his poetry's tame."]]
After graduation from Oxford, Wilde returned to Dublin, where he met again [[Florence Balcombe]], a childhood sweetheart. She became engaged to [[Bram Stoker]] and they married in 1878.{{sfn|Kilfeather|2005|p=101}} Wilde was disappointed but stoic. He wrote to Balcombe remembering; "the two sweet years&nbsp;– the sweetest years of all my youth" during which they had been close.{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=71}} He also stated his intention to "return to England, probably for good". This he did in 1878, only briefly visiting Ireland twice after that.{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=71}}{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=99}}

Unsure of his next step, Wilde wrote to various acquaintances enquiring about Classics positions at Oxford or Cambridge.{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|pp=72-78}} ''The Rise of Historical Criticism'' was his submission for the Chancellor's Essay prize of 1879, which, though no longer a student, he was still eligible to enter. Its subject, "Historical Criticism among the Ancients" seemed ready-made for Wilde&nbsp;– with both his skill in composition and ancient learning&nbsp;– but he struggled to find his voice in the long, flat, scholarly style.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=102}} Unusually, no prize was awarded that year.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=102}}{{efn|The essay was later published in "Miscellanies", the final section of the 1908 edition of Wilde's collected works.{{sfn|Mason|1972|p=486}}}}

With the last of his inheritance from the sale of his father's houses, he set himself up as a bachelor in London.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=105}} The 1881 British Census listed Wilde as a boarder at 1 (now 44) [[Tite Street]], Chelsea, where [[Frank Miles]], a society painter, was the head of the household.<ref>{{cite United Kingdom census
 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q273-4R8Q
 |table=Oscar Wilde
 |year=1881
 |publisher=
 |access-date=2 March 2010
 |archive-url=
 |archive-date=
 |url-status=
}}  1881 England Census [database on-line]. Source Citation: Class: RG11; Piece: 78; Folio: 56; p. 46; GSU roll: 1341017.</ref>{{sfn|Cox|2015|p={{page needed|date=May 2021}}}}

[[Lillie Langtry]] was introduced to Wilde at Frank Miles' studio in 1877. The most glamorous woman in England, Langtry assumed great importance to Wilde during his early years in London, and they remained close friends for many years; he tutored her in Latin and later encouraged her to pursue acting.<ref>{{cite book |last=Langtry |first=Lillie |author-link=Lillie Langtry |title=The Days I Knew |publisher=Panoply Publications |date=2000 |page=123}}</ref> She wrote in her autobiography that he "possessed a remarkably fascinating and compelling personality", and "the cleverness of his remarks received added value from his manner of delivering them."<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Sullivan |first=Emer |title=The Fall of the House of Wilde: Oscar Wilde and His Family |date=2017 |publisher=Bloomsbury |page=197}}</ref>

Wilde regularly attended the theatre and was especially taken with star actresses such as [[Ellen Terry]] and [[Sarah Bernhardt]].{{sfn|Sturgis|2018|pp=146–147}} In 1880 he completed his first play, ''[[Vera; or, The Nihilists]]'', a tragic melodrama about Russian nihilism, and distributed privately printed copies to various actresses whom he hoped to interest in its sole female role.{{sfn|Sturgis|2018|pp=167–170}} A one-off performance in London was advertised in November 1881 with [[Mrs. Bernard Beere]] as Vera, but withdrawn by Wilde for what was claimed to be consideration for political feeling in England.{{sfn|Sturgis|2018|pp=194–195}}

He had been publishing lyrics and poems in magazines since entering Trinity College, especially in ''[[Kottabos (journal)|Kottabos]]'' and the ''[[Dublin University Magazine]]''. In mid-1881, at 27 years old, he published ''Poems'', which collected, revised and expanded his poems.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=131}}

Though the book sold out its first print run of 750 copies, it was not generally well received by the critics: ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'', for example, said that "The poet is Wilde, but his poetry's tame".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|pp=132, 138}}<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-2bO0I-lGvcC&pg=PR6 |title=Collected Poems of Oscar Wilde |publisher=Wordsworth Poetry Library |year=2000 |isbn=1853264539 |editor-last=Varty |editor-first=Anne |location=Ware |page=vi |access-date=23 August 2020 |archive-date=3 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210803095614/https://books.google.com/books?id=-2bO0I-lGvcC&pg=PR6 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Wilde |first=Oscar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B9EfsANd0OcC&pg=PR11 |title=Complete Poetry |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1997 |isbn=0192825089 |editor-last=Murray |editor-first=Isobel |editor-link=Isobel Murray |series=Oxford World's Classics |location=Oxford |pages=x–xi |access-date=23 August 2020 |archive-date=3 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210803095612/https://books.google.com/books?id=B9EfsANd0OcC&pg=PR11 |url-status=live}}</ref> By a tight vote, the Oxford Union condemned the book for alleged [[plagiarism]]. <!-- Historians or critics' position? Was this true? -->The librarian, who had requested the book for the library, returned the presentation copy to Wilde with a note of apology.{{sfn|Morley|1976|p=36}}{{sfn|Hyde|1948|p=39}} Biographer [[Richard Ellmann]] argues that Wilde's poem "[[s:Hélas!|Hélas!]]" was a sincere, though flamboyant, attempt to explain the dichotomies the poet saw in himself; one line reads: "To drift with every passion till my soul / Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|pp=132–133}}

The book had further printings in 1882. It was bound in a rich, enamel parchment cover (embossed with gilt blossom) and printed on hand-made Dutch paper; over the next few years, Wilde presented many copies to the dignitaries and writers who received him during his lecture tours.{{sfn|Mason|1972|p=282}}

=== North America: 1882 ===
[[File:Oscar Wilde at Harper's Theatre, April 1882.jpg|thumb|upright|Wilde lectured on "The English Renaissance" in art during his US and Canada tour in 1882.]]
[[Aestheticism]] was sufficiently in vogue to be caricatured by [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] in ''[[Patience (opera)|Patience]]'' (1881). [[Richard D'Oyly Carte]], an English impresario, invited Wilde to make a lecture tour of North America, simultaneously priming the pump for the US tour of ''Patience'' and selling this most charming aesthete to the American public. Wilde journeyed on the [[SS Arizona|SS ''Arizona'']], arriving on 2 January 1882, and disembarking the following day.<ref>{{cite web |last=Cooper |first=John |title=S.S. Arizona |url=http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/arrival/ss-arizona.html |access-date=15 October 2017 |publisher=Oscar Wilde in America |archive-date=16 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016013839/http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/arrival/ss-arizona.html |url-status=live}}</ref>{{efn|Wilde reputedly told a customs officer that "I have nothing to declare except my genius", although the first recording of this remark was many years later, and Wilde's best lines were often quoted immediately in the press.<ref>{{cite web |last=Cooper |first=John |title=Attribution of 'I have nothing to declare except my genius' |url=http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/quotations/nothing-to-declare.html |access-date=12 August 2012 |publisher=Oscar Wilde in America |archive-date=3 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190403075918/http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/quotations/nothing-to-declare.html |url-status=live}})</ref>}} Originally planned to last four months, the tour continued for almost a year owing to its commercial success.<ref>{{cite web |last=Cooper |first=John |title=The Lecture Tour of North America 1882 |url=http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016014206/http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/index.html |archive-date=16 October 2017 |access-date=15 October 2017 |publisher=Oscar Wilde in America}}</ref> Wilde sought to transpose the beauty he saw in art into daily life.<ref name="Mendelssohn">{{cite book |last=Mendelssohn |first=Michèle |title=Making Oscar Wilde |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-19-880236-5 |page=285}}</ref> This was a practical as well as philosophical project: in Oxford he had surrounded himself with blue china and lilies, and now one of his lectures was on interior design. In a [[British Library]] article on aestheticism and decadence, Carolyn Burdett writes, {{quote|"Wilde teased his readers with the claim that [[Life imitating art|life imitates art]] rather than the other way round. His point was a serious one: we notice London fogs, he argued, because art and literature has taught us to do so. Wilde, among others, 'performed' these maxims. He presented himself as the impeccably dressed and mannered [[dandy]] figure whose life was a work of art."<ref>{{cite news |last=Burdett |first=Carolyn |date=15 March 2014 |title=Aestheticism and decadence |agency=British Library |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/aestheticism-and-decadence |access-date=19 January 2021 |archive-date=21 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201021132118/https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/aestheticism-and-decadence |url-status=live}}</ref>}}

When asked to explain reports that he had paraded down [[Piccadilly]] in London carrying a lily, long hair flowing, Wilde replied, "It's not whether I did it or not that's important, but whether people believed I did it".<ref name="Mendelssohn" /> Wilde believed that the artist should hold forth higher ideals, and that pleasure and beauty would replace utilitarian ethics.{{sfn|Kiberd|2000|pp=329–330}}

[[File:The Modern Messiah - Keller 1882.jpg|left|thumb|alt=A Satirical cartoon shows a dandy figure, fancily dressed in a long coat and breeches, floating across the crowd in a tightly packed ballroom.|Keller cartoon from the ''[[The Wasp (magazine)|Wasp]]'' of San Francisco depicting Wilde on the occasion of his visit there in 1882]]
Wilde and aestheticism were both mercilessly caricatured and criticised in the press: the ''[[The Republican (Springfield)|Springfield Republican]]'', for instance, commented on Wilde's behaviour during his visit to Boston to lecture on aestheticism, suggesting that Wilde's conduct was more a bid for notoriety rather than devotion to beauty and the aesthetic. [[Thomas Wentworth Higginson|T. W. Higginson]], a cleric and abolitionist, wrote in "Unmanly Manhood" of his general concern that Wilde, "whose only distinction is that he has written a thin volume of very mediocre verse", would improperly influence the behaviour of men and women.<ref name="Unmanly">{{cite journal |last=Higginson |first=Thomas Wentworth |date=4 February 1882 |title=Unmanly Manhood |url=http://www.classroomelectric.org/volume2/price/remembered/womans_journal.htm |journal=Woman's Journal |access-date=14 April 2010 |archive-date=3 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170603070637/http://www.classroomelectric.org/volume2/price/remembered/womans_journal.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>

According to biographer Michèle Mendelssohn, Wilde was the subject of [[anti-Irish]] caricature and was portrayed as a monkey, a [[blackface]] performer and a [[Christy's Minstrels|Christy's Minstrel]] throughout his career.<ref name="Mendelssohn" /> "''[[Harper's Weekly]]'' put a sunflower-worshipping monkey dressed as Wilde on the front of the January 1882 issue. The drawing stimulated other American maligners and, in England, had a full-page reprint in the ''Lady's Pictorial''. ... When the ''National Republican'' discussed Wilde, it was to explain 'a few items as to the animal's pedigree.' And on 22 January 1882, the [[The Washington Post|''Washington Post'']] illustrated the [[Wild Men of Borneo|Wild Man of Borneo]] alongside Oscar Wilde of England and asked 'How far is it from this to this?'"<ref name="Mendelssohn" /> When he visited San Francisco, the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' reported, "The city is divided into two camps, those who thought Wilde was an engaging speaker and an original thinker, and those who thought he was the most pretentious fraud ever perpetrated on a groaning public."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chamings |first=Andrew |date=8 April 2021 |orig-date=8 April 2021 |title=Oscar Wilde's visit to San Francisco sent the city into a bitter, clamoring frenzy |url=https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Oscar-Wilde-visit-to-San-Francisco-history-15983256.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240814011757/https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Oscar-Wilde-visit-to-San-Francisco-history-15983256.php |archive-date=14 August 2024 |access-date=22 August 2024 |website=The San Francisco Gate}}</ref> Though his press reception was hostile, Wilde was well received in diverse settings across America: he drank whiskey with miners in [[Leadville, Colorado]], and was fêted at the most fashionable salons in many cities he visited.<ref>{{cite web |last=King |first=Steve |title=Wilde in America |url=http://www.todayinliterature.com/stories.asp?Event_Date=12/24/1881 |access-date=14 April 2010 |publisher=Today in Literature |archive-date=13 February 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100213024306/http://www.todayinliterature.com/stories.asp?Event_Date=12%2F24%2F1881 |url-status=live}} Regarding Wilde's visit to Leadville, Colorado, 24 December 1881.</ref>

=== London life and marriage ===
[[File:Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) from Vanity Fair Issue 812, April 1884..jpg|thumb|150px|Caricature of Wilde in the London magazine ''[[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', 24 April 1884]]
His earnings, plus expected income from ''[[The Duchess of Padua]]'', allowed him to move to Paris between February and mid-May 1883. While there he met [[Robert Sherard]], whom he entertained constantly. "We are dining on the Duchess tonight", Wilde would declare before taking him to an expensive restaurant.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=205}} In August he briefly returned to New York for the production of ''Vera'', the rights of which he had sold to the American actress [[Marie Prescott]]. The play was initially well received by the audience, but when the critics wrote lukewarm reviews, attendance fell sharply and the play closed a week after it had opened.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=228}}
{{multiple image|align=left
 | footer    = Left: No. 34 [[Tite Street]], [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]], the Wilde family home from 1884 to his arrest in 1895. Right: close up of the commemorative [[blue plaque]] on the outer wall. In Wilde's time this was No. 16 – the houses have been renumbered.<ref name="Bristow 2009 xli">{{cite book |last=Bristow |first=Joseph |title=Oscar Wilde and Modern Culture: The Making of a Legend |publisher=Ohio University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-8214-1837-6 |location=Athens, OH |page=xli |author-link=Joseph Bristow (literary scholar)}}</ref>
 | width     =
 | image1    = Wildehouse.JPG
 | width1    = 116
 | image2    = OSCAR WILDE 1854-1900 wit and dramatist lived here.JPG
 | width2    = 120
}}
In London, he had been introduced in 1881 to [[Constance Lloyd]], daughter of Horace Lloyd, a wealthy [[Queen's Counsel]] (lawyer). She happened to be visiting Dublin in 1884 when Wilde was lecturing at the [[Gaiety Theatre, Dublin|Gaiety Theatre]]. He proposed to her, and they married on 29 May 1884 at the Anglican [[St James's Church, Paddington]], in London.<ref>{{cite web |title=Oscar & Constance Wilde |url=http://www.stjamespaddington.org.uk/history/oscar-constance-wilde.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090108025648/http://www.stjamespaddington.org.uk/history/oscar-constance-wilde.html |archive-date=8 January 2009 |access-date=14 April 2010 |publisher=Saint James, Sussex Gardens, London}}</ref><ref name="Fitzsimons">{{cite book |last=Fitzsimons |first=Eleanor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ksZTCwAAQBAJ&q=st%20james%20sussex%20gardens%20oscar%20wilde&pg=PT133 |title=Wilde's Women: How Oscar Wilde Was Shaped by the Women He Knew |year= 2017 |publisher=The Overlook Press |isbn=978-1-4683-1326-0 |access-date=25 September 2016 |archive-date=3 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210803095612/https://books.google.com/books?id=ksZTCwAAQBAJ&q=st%20james%20sussex%20gardens%20oscar%20wilde&pg=PT133 |url-status=live}}</ref> Although Constance had an annual allowance of £250, which was generous for a young woman ({{Inflation|UK|250|1884|r=-2|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}), the Wildes had relatively luxurious tastes. They had preached to others for so long on the subject of design that people expected their home to set new standards.{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} 

No 16 [[Tite Street]] in [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]], west London was duly renovated in seven months at considerable expense. The couple had two sons, [[Cyril Holland|Cyril]] (1885) and [[Vyvyan Holland|Vyvyan]] (1886). Wilde became the sole literary signatory of [[George Bernard Shaw]]'s petition for a pardon of the anarchists arrested (and later executed) after the [[Haymarket affair|Haymarket massacre]] in Chicago in 1886.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=273}}

[[File:Robert Ross at 24.jpg|thumb|alt=A small head-portrait of a young, pale man with dark hair.|Robert Ross at twenty-four|right]] In 1886, while at Oxford, Wilde met [[Robbie Ross|Robert Ross]]. Ross, who had read Wilde's poems before they met, seemed unrestrained by the Victorian prohibition against homosexuality. By [[Richard Ellmann]]'s account, he was a precocious seventeen-year-old who "so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce Wilde".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=275}} According to [[Daniel Mendelsohn]], Wilde, who had long alluded to [[Greek love]], was "initiated into homosexual sex" by Ross, while his "marriage had begun to unravel after his wife's second pregnancy, which left him physically repelled".<ref>{{cite book |last=Mendelsohn |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Mendelsohn |title=How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays By Daniel Mendelsohn |chapter=The two Oscar Wildes |url=https://archive.org/details/howbeautifulitis00mend_132 |url-access=limited |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |year=2008 |page=[https://archive.org/details/howbeautifulitis00mend_132/page/n231 218] |isbn=978-0-06-145644-2}}</ref>

Wilde had a number of favourite haunts in London. These included the [[Café Royal]] in Piccadilly, [[Hatchards]] bookstore in Piccadilly,<ref>{{cite book |last=Clayton |first=Antony |title=Decadent London: Fin de Siècle City |publisher=Historical Publications |date=2005 |page=54}}</ref> and the department stores [[Liberty (department store)|Liberty & Co.]] on Great Marlborough Street and [[Harrods]] in Knightsbridge; Wilde was among Harrods' first selected customers who were granted extended credit.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pottinger |first=George |title=The Winning Counter: Hugh Fraser and Harrods |publisher=Hutchinson |date=1971 |page=80}}</ref>