OSCAR WILDE DISCOVERS AMERICA 1882

First rate reading, this analysis of America through the angle of Oscar Wilde's spectacular Coast to Coast speaking tour in the cause of aestheticism. Although this gives definite focus and limitations, the resulting picture is much more a kaleidoscopic picture of the country, its madness and rawness and naivetÉ and foibles and enthusiasms, than it is an account of Wilde. The illustrations are fascinating, drawn almost wholly from contemporary sources. From the social angle, it was a revealing period, and reads today incredibly a picture of a new and raw country. The impression left of Wilde, while not an appealing one, is in any event an impression of greater sincerity, less the egotistic poseur than the sort of publicity he secured would seem to warrant. A book that might get the sort of market that King Lehr and The Gilded Age secured.