Letters: When Oscar Wilde visited
Re “Wilde about California,” Opinion, May 5
Roy Morris Jr. opens his otherwise interesting piece on Oscar Wilde’s 1882 trip to San Francisco with a most unfortunate analogy.
If readers come away with the impression that Wilde was of the same ilk as Paris Hilton or the “Jersey Shore” gang, he has done a disservice to Wilde and to your readers.
Wilde left us plays that are routinely enjoyed more than a century after he wrote them. Hilton and Snooki will have left us only embarrassment at the vacuousness of our popular culture.
Robert C. Huber
Yorba Linda
After his visit to San Francisco, Wilde referred to the city in “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” when Lord Henry Wotton notes: “It’s an odd thing but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world.”
Fred Hofmann
Goleta, Calif.
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