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[Early March 1882] Griggsville, Illinois

Dear Mrs Lewis, I am sorry to say that an art-movement has begun at Griggsville, for I feel it will not last long and that Colvin will be lecturing about it. At present the style here is Griggsville rococo, and there are also traces of ‘archaic Griggsville’, but in a few days the Griggsville Renaissance will blossom: it will have an exquisite bloom for a week, and then (Colvin’s fourth lecture) become ‘debased Griggsville’, and the Griggsville Decadence. I seem to hear the Slade Professor, or dear Newton, on it. As for myself I promise you never, never to lecture in England, not even at dinner.

The Giottos of Griggsville are waiting in a deputation below, so I must stop. With kind remembrances to Mr Lewis, and remembrances to Katie, yours sincerely

OSCAR WILDE

Wilde’s revolutionary drama Vera had been scheduled for production in London shortly before he left, but partly for political reasons—the American President and the Russian Czar had been assassinated in 1881—and partly through lack of funds, it was cancelled. Once across the Atlantic, though, he felt its republican sentiments would have greater appeal in America where it was eventually produced to savage criticism in August 1883.