updated March 2007

ATTRIBUTION

Original source

One of the most celebrated quotations by anyone is the remark attributed to Wilde at New York Customs at the start of his lecture tour of America in 1882.  But what exactly did he say, and what is the source of the quotation?

Our earliest known reference is in Oscar Wilde A Critical Study by Arthur Ransome, 1912. [Mason 666], p64:

"..Wilde sailed for New York, to say that he was disappointed in the Atlantic, to tell Customs Officials that he had nothing to declare except his genius, and to lecture throughout America.."

It is clear that Ransome's sense is literal not abstract or figurative, because the "Atlantic" remark is also an actual quotation.  Unfortunately, Ransome gives no source, so we must evaluate the circumstances.

There is no reason to believe that the unassuming Ransome, son of a history professor, would have fabricated the incident. After all, his book, A Critical Study, is just that. It is not primarily autobiographical, and it makes no attempt to sensationalize.

If the quotation is authentic, Ransome must have come across it in his research for the book, but we must consider several factors:

1. Ransome did not know Wilde, and was not even born at the time of the remark.

2. It is just possible that he (or someone else) came across oral evidence that had been unrelated until then, but this is unlikely.

3. The probable source for Ransome would have been  Robert Ross (Wilde's intimate friend and literary executor) who  largely facilitated the publication of the book, and provided Ransome with many original documents for it. Indeed the book is dedicated to Ross.

4. However, Ross himself did not meet Wilde until well after 1882 (when the remark is dated) and thus it is likely that he also would not have heard of it contemporaneously. It follows that Ross in turn heard of it from another source, possibly from Wilde.

This is not convincing, and so we must consider alternatives.

First, the possibility that Wilde did not make the remark at the at the time of passing through Customs, but told Ross, or someone else, that he did. We are reminded that he took pleasure in having the world believe he had done something he had not¹.

Second, that Wilde had thought of saying it, but didn't, perhaps out of propriety. He may even have wished he had said it.²

Either way, the remark would come from Wilde.

But it is equally possible that Wilde did not make the remark at all. We know that, owing to Wilde's celebrity and the level of anticipation for his tour of America, many of his remarks were widely and immediately reported at the time. For example, his remark that he was disappointed in the Atlantic.  So it is suspicious that there is no contemporary evidence for this quotation (in newspapers etc.) and, further, that it took thirty years to find its way into print.

The first biography of Wilde: Oscar Wilde; the story of an unhappy friendship, Robert Sherard, 1902) does not mention it - but notes the "Atlantic" remark. 

Interestingly, In Memoriam, Oscar Wilde.(André Gide, Franz Blei, and Ernest La Jeunesse, 1905) refers to Wilde's genius several times (pp 49, 87, 91, 101) and quotes Wilde on French customs officers (p55), but there is no mention of the New York incident.

It is also noteworthy that Wilde himself makes no reference to the remark in any of the over 1500 letters of his that survive, including those at the time from New York that are quite detailed.

We might never know. It might simply have been invented as apropos (perhaps by Ross) or was by Ransome's time already apocryphal: something too good not have been said.

Succeeding scholarship has done little to clarify the question, as the phrase has been easily passed along  as gospel.

Some biographers (in the manner of their novelist cousins) embroider the scene, changing Wilde's wording or delivery, while others invent circumstance.

One such (Martin Fido) even quotes the Customs Official's response! Our sincere apologies if Mr. Fido has a source, but in the meantime, the OWSOA continues its search.

© John Cooper, OWSOA

See also: Nothing but my genius? at Arrival.

When asked by a reporter whether it was true (that he had done it) Wilde replied: "To have done it was nothing, but to make people think one had done was a triumph"
[New York World, 8th January, 1882]