These pages document for the first time a detailed, comprehensive, and accurate record of all the dates, venues, and subjects of Oscar Wilde’s 1882 lecture tour of North America.
Wilde conducted 141 lectures over 11 months of 1882 and each has its own page beginning with the first lecture in New York City.
Each lecture is supported by details of the date, location, and subject, along with related ephemera—the standard being that all information is verified by a supporting primary source.
Explore the lecture tour:
- Complete lecture list
- Chronological timeline
- Cities and venues
- Lecture subjects
- Newspaper reports
- Ephemera
- Wilde's lodgings
- Related blog essays
Previously Published Itineraries
There have been several approximations of Wilde’s lecture tour, principally the ones published in the following works:
Brasol, Boris, Oscar Wilde: The Man-The Artist. Williams and Norgate, 1938.
Mikhail, E. H., ed. Oscar Wilde: Interviews and Recollections. 2 vols. London: MacMillan, 1979.
Ellmann, Richard.Oscar Wilde.London: Hamish Hamilton; New York: Knopf, 1987.
Page, Norman.An Oscar Wilde Chronology. Houndmills: MacMillan; Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991.
Beckson, Karl E., ed.The Oscar Wilde Encyclopedia. New York: AMS Press, 1998.
Despite subsequent sources drawing upon previous ones, none of them agrees with any other, and each is incorrect in several respects. Therefore, in addition to the verified list, there is a side-by-side comparison list to demonstrate the evolution of scholarship and as a frame of reference.
