On Christmas Eve, 1881, Oscar Wilde set sail from Liverpool for North America on board the SS Arizona for a year-long lecture tour. Nine days after departure he was greeted with feverish excitement by the New York press, who chartered a launch to bring them aboard the ship before it docked. They wanted to find out about Wilde's journey across the Atlantic, question him about his cultural mission of "civilizing America" and in particular ask him to define aestheticism.
His itinerary covered an extensive geographical area; he toured all over the United States and Canada, giving 140 talks in 260 days. He had three standard scripts: "The Decorative Arts", "The House Beautiful" and "Irish Poets and Poetry of the 19th Century". The story of Wilde's American lecture adventure is told in all its colourful and epigrammatic detail in a new BBC radio documentary to be broadcast this weekend.
The first thing that struck him was the way people dressed: "If the Americans are not the most well-dressed people in the world, they are the most comfortably dressed." The second thing he noticed was that everyone seemed in a hurry to catch a train.
After a hectic round of lunches and dinners in New York, his whistle-stop tour covering thousands of miles took him state by state from the north-east through the mid-west to California. He wrote to a friend: "Nothing like it since Dickens, they tell me. I am torn in bits by Society. Immense receptions, wonderful dinners, crowds wait for my carriage. Rooms are hung with white lilies for me everywhere. I have 'Boy' at intervals." ("Boy" was champagne.)
Americans turned out in droves to listen to him. Up to 2,000 people packed into halls in each venue and his lectures were received with a mix of praise and ridicule. Many attended out of curiosity while others saw him as a freak. The press took a serious interest in him and reporters were amused by what we might now call his sound-bites. His every move was recorded and every off-the-cuff remark laughed at.
In some places people mocked his poetry and several newspapers were unimpressed. The Chicago Tribune called him a "twittering sparrow". Fun was poked at his flamboyant attire. He was frequently dressed in knee breeches and black silk stockings, a velvet jacket, a sky blue cravat and a fur coat.
During his tour Wilde met an enormous range of people, including a number of distinguished writers. He breakfasted with Henry Longfellow and met Henry James (whom he insulted and who said of him, "Hosscar Wilde is a fatuous fool".) He spent an afternoon in the company of Walt Whitman and the two enjoyed a bottle of wine. Writing to a friend about meeting Whitman, he said he had no doubt about the poet's sexual orientation and boasted: "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips."
Wilde was also introduced to leading figures from the government and the cream of high society in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and other cities. He met Mormons, Indians and silver-miners. One of his most memorable adventures was in Leadville, high up in the Rocky Mountains, which involved a journey by rail of six days. He read passages to the miners from the autobiography of the Renaissance artist and silversmith Benvenuto Cellini. "I was reproved by my hearers," he said later, "for not having brought him with me. I explained that he had been dead for some little time, which elicited the inquiry: 'Who shot him?'"
Afterwards the miners took him to a dancing saloon where he saw what he described as the only rational method of art criticism he had ever come across on a printed notice over a piano: "Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best."
When he reached California, he told a reporter from the San Francisco Examiner that "the further west one comes, the more there is to like". As part of his marathon schedule he visited the southern states and Canada, but Niagara Falls didn't measure up to his expectations. "It must be the second biggest disappointment on honeymoons," he quipped.
By the time he had set out for America, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was already famous and his lecture tour secured that fame. His extraordinary journey criss-crossing the Continent was a tremendous success and when he left for home he was a well-known name throughout the United States. He set sail for England on December 27th, 1882 brimful of stories for his friends.
These stories can be heard on Oscar in America, presented by the historian and Wilde scholar Owen Dudley Edwards. The programme will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 10.15pm on Sunday. The role of Oscar is played by the Dublin-based actor and director Alan Stanford.
The producer Chris Spurr, in his own sound-bite, sums up 1882 as Wilde's "gap year". Spurr's quest for interviewees took him, not only to the United States, but also to an area in Burgundy where he tracked down Merlin Holland, Wilde's only grandson, who paints an illuminating picture of his grandfather's American odyssey.
Oscar Wilde's one-liners have been reproduced in countless books of quotations and reprinted on everything from calendars and mugs to T-shirts - even if some of them are of questionable pedigree. One enduring epigram is his response to a customs officer's question on arrival in New York when he reputedly replied: "I have nothing to declare except my genius." Whether he said it or not, we may never know for certain. But through the magic of radio, listeners can chuckle their way through a collection of sparkling Wilde witticisms - most as fresh as the day they were minted 125 years ago.