“Nothing but my genius.”—Playwright Oscar Wilde, stepping foot on American soil, responding to the usual custom agent inquiry if he had anything to declare, quoted in Arthur Ransome, Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study (1912)In researching this famous—no, make that unforgettable—quote from Oscar Wilde, I found that sources were equally divided on whether it occurred January 2 or 3 of 1882. More astonishing to me, a post from John Cooper from the Oscar Wilde Society of America raises the dismaying but legitimate question of whether these words were uttered at all. (Recall painter-wag James McNeill Whistler’s wicked response upon hearing Wilde say, after someone else's witticism, “I wish I had said that”: “You will, Oscar, you will.”)
Whatever the exact circumstances, it remains a fact that America took quickly to the flamboyant Anglo-Irish aesthete. According to contemporary accounts, he does really seem to have expressed "disappointment in the Atlantic." By the time he was done with his visit, he had served notice that a brilliant new presence was indeed on the literary scene. But it would be fully a decade before he really did offer proof—and for such a short period before folly and catastrophe overtook him—of the genius he is reputed to have declared.
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