‘The Paradise for Women’: How Oscar Wilde was Embraced by the Women of America

Abstract

This article explores the influence of prominent literary and society women on the success of Oscar Wilde’s lecture tour of North America in 1882, when he was a minor poet with a fashionable reputation in London. At that time, several commentators remarked on his popularity with women, and contrasted this with the hostility often exhibited towards him by men. Key influencers included Mrs. Frank Leslie and Jane Cunningham Croly, who shaped public opinion through their ownership or editorship of organs of the press. Others who championed Wilde, including Kate Field, Jane Tunis Poultney Bigelow, Marietta Paran Stevens and Anne Lynch Botta, wielded immense power through their patronage of emerging writers and artists. Had he not secured the public approval of these women and gained entry to their homes, Wilde would have struggled to generate positive publicity for his erudite lectures.