GLR March-April 2026

occur) and expressed his regret that he could not join Wilde for dinner, but he asked for her to give Wilde his “hearty salutation & American welcome.” After hearing this news, Wilde made it clear to Whitman that he would eagerly travel to Camden to meet his idol. Whitman responded in a note on January 18th, the day after Wilde’s Philadelphia lecture, that if Wilde would like to see him, he could be found at 431 Stevens St., Camden, “between 2 till 3 ½ this afternoon [and] will be most happy to see Mr. Wilde & Mr. Stoddart.” Wilde left the Aldine Hotel with Stoddart, boarded a ferry, and made a quick journey across the river to Camden. Then the two walked about twenty minutes to 431 Stevens St., and Wilde’s wish became a reality. Whitman was living with his brother George and sister-in law Louisa, who were taking care of him after his stroke. As Wilde and Stoddart sat down with Whitman, Louisa’s home made elderberry wine was soon produced, and the three in dulged in it as they engaged in a literary discussion. Wilde divulged that his mother read Leaves of Grass to him as a child. Whitman was flattered and desired to get to know Wilde on a more intimate level. Whitman soon excused himself from Stod dart and the others gathered in the living room and invited Wilde up to the third floor. This environment was later characterized by Whitman as a place where the two indulged in “a jolly good time” and Wilde could get away from “fashionable society, and spend … time with an ‘old rough.’” Wilde explained that while in the den, he experienced “the greatest and strongest man who … ever lived.” After their meeting, Whitman wrote to his friend Harry Stafford that he was very impressed with this “fine large hand

tour across the country.” When the Arizona finally docked in New York City on January 2, 1882, the press was waiting for Wilde to disembark so they could “catch their first glimpse of the rare and wonderful English Æsthete.” Wilde didn’t disap point. The New York World reported that he was wearing “patent-leather shoes, a smoking-cap or turban … [an] ultra Byronic [shirt] … a sky-blue cravat of the sailor style [and] … his hair flowed over his shoulders in dark-brown waves, curling slightly upwards at the end.” On January 9th, Wilde delivered his first lecture on “The English Renaissance” at New York’s Chickering Hall. After ward The New York Times critiqued his lecture and appearance as having a certain “affected effeminacy,” and The Brooklyn Daily Eagle commented that one would not be surprised if New York’s sexual underground groups, the Charlotte Anns and the Miss Nancys, quickly embraced Wilde’s “peculiar tenets.” These two groups were made up of young men who enjoyed the sexual company of other men, and The New-York Tribune reported that “pallid and æsthetic young men in dress suits and banged hair” could be seen in attendance at Wilde’s Chickering Hall lecture. Wilde and these young men shared similar fashion and a banged hairstyle that “consisted of a deep fringe, with longer ringlets, waves or plaits on either side.” Wilde was already attracting a queer young male fanbase who desired to learn about the secrets of Æstheticism. However, the press was already questioning Wilde’s queer Æsthetic sensi bility, long before he was convicted of gross indecency in 1895. On January 16, 1882, Wilde left New York to journey to Philadelphia’s Horticultural Hall for another lecture. As he trav eled by train from Jersey City, a reporter from The Philadel phia Press interviewed him and published an article titled “A Talk with Wilde.” In it, Wilde was asked: “What poet do you most admire in American literature?” He told the reporter: “I think that Walt Whitman and Emerson have given the world more than anyone else. I do so hope to meet Mr. Whitman. Per haps he is not widely read in England, but England never ap preciates a poet until he is dead.” He stressed the intensity of his admiration for Whitman, say ing that he discussed the poet with his friends “Dante Rossetti, [Algernon Charles] Swinburne, [and] William Morris.” He added: “There is something so Greek … about his poetry.” Wilde’s iden tification of Greek themes in Whitman’s poetry dovetails with what he told The Boston Herald about thinking he was in the pres ence of an ancient Greek when they spent intimate time together. Wilde had already reached out to his friend J. M. Stoddart, who knew Whitman, to arrange a personal meeting. It was Stoddart who had informed Whitman of Wilde’s de sire to meet with him in person several days earlier. Word quickly circulated about the prospect of the authors meeting, and a newspaper story came out titled “Walt Whitman on Æs thetic Poetry,” in which a reporter asked what he thought of Wilde’s verse. Whitman responded that he read “very little nowadays … and almost never read poetry,” but he was willing to give Wilde and “the poetry of Æstheticism a fair chance,” given that “the æsthetes are young and the field is wide.” How ever, he could not travel to see Wilde in Philadelphia due to a stroke and limited mobility. Whitman sent a note to Mrs. George W. Childs (the wife of the Philadelphia publisher at whose house the meeting was to

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