Oscar Wilde in America - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Oscar Wilde in America write by Oscar Wilde. This book was released on 2010-01-06. Oscar Wilde in America available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Better known in 1882 as a cultural icon than a serious writer, Oscar Wilde was brought to North America for a major lecture tour on Aestheticism and the decorative arts. With characteristic aplomb, he adopted the role as the ambassador of Aestheticism, and he tried out a number of phrases, ideas, and strategies that ultimately made him famous as a novelist and playwright. This exceptional volume cites all ninety-one of Wilde's interviews and contains transcripts of forty-eight of them, and it also includes his lecture on his travels in America.
Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity
Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity write by David M. Friedman. This book was released on 2014-10-06. Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The story of Oscar Wilde’s landmark 1882 American tour explains how this quotable literary eminence became famous for being famous. On January 3, 1882, Oscar Wilde, a twenty-seven-year-old “genius”—at least by his own reckoning—arrived in New York. The Dublin-born Oxford man had made such a spectacle of himself in London with his eccentric fashion sense, acerbic wit, and extravagant passion for art and home design that Gilbert & Sullivan wrote an operetta lampooning him. He was hired to go to America to promote that work by presenting lectures on interior decorating. But Wilde had his own business plan. He would go to promote himself. And he did, traveling some 15,000 miles and visiting 150 American cities as he created a template for fame creation that still works today. Though Wilde was only the author of a self-published book of poems and an unproduced play, he presented himself as a “star,” taking the stage in satin breeches and a velvet coat with lace trim as he sang the praises of sconces and embroidered pillows—and himself. What Wilde so presciently understood is that fame could launch a career as well as cap one. David M. Friedman’s lively and often hilarious narrative whisks us across nineteenth-century America, from the mansions of Gilded Age Manhattan to roller-skating rinks in Indiana, from an opium den in San Francisco to the bottom of the Matchless silver mine in Colorado—then the richest on earth—where Wilde dined with twelve gobsmacked miners, later describing their feast to his friends in London as “First course: whiskey. Second course: whiskey. Third course: whiskey.” But, as Friedman shows, Wilde was no mere clown; he was a strategist. From his antics in London to his manipulation of the media—Wilde gave 100 interviews in America, more than anyone else in the world in 1882—he designed every move to increase his renown. There had been famous people before him, but Wilde was the first to become famous for being famous. Wilde in America is an enchanting tale of travel and transformation, comedy and capitalism—an unforgettable story that teaches us about our present as well as our past.
Oscar Wilde Discovers America
Oscar Wilde Discovers America - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Oscar Wilde Discovers America write by Louis Edwards. This book was released on 2003-01-28. Oscar Wilde Discovers America available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This compelling and unique fictional foray into American history follows a brilliantly conjured Wilde and his young black valet on a whirlwind tour across the country from high-society Newport to the deep south.
Declaring His Genius
Declaring His Genius - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Declaring His Genius write by Roy Morris Jr.. This book was released on 2013-01-07. Declaring His Genius available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Arriving at the port of New York in 1882, a 27-year-old Oscar Wilde quipped he had “nothing to declare but my genius.” But as Roy Morris, Jr., reveals in this sparkling narrative, Wilde was, for the first time in his life, underselling himself. A chronicle of the sensation that was Wilde’s eleven-month speaking tour of America, Declaring His Genius offers an indelible portrait of both Oscar Wilde and the Gilded Age. Wilde covered 15,000 miles, delivered 140 lectures, and met everyone who was anyone. Dressed in satin knee britches and black silk stockings, the long-haired apostle of the British Aesthetic Movement alternately shocked, entertained, and enlightened a spellbound nation. Harvard students attending one of his lectures sported Wildean costume, clutching sunflowers and affecting world-weary poses. Denver prostitutes enticed customers by crying: “We know what makes a cat wild, but what makes Oscar Wilde?” Whitman hoisted a glass to his health, while Ambrose Bierce denounced him as a fraud. Wilde helped alter the way post–Civil War Americans—still reeling from the most destructive conflict in their history—understood themselves. In an era that saw rapid technological changes, social upheaval, and an ever-widening gap between rich and poor, he delivered a powerful anti-materialistic message about art and the need for beauty. Yet Wilde too was changed by his tour. Having conquered America, a savvier, more mature writer was ready to take on the rest of the world. Neither Wilde nor America would ever be the same.
Impressions of America
Impressions of America - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Impressions of America write by Oscar Wilde. This book was released on 1906. Impressions of America available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
