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Napoleon Sarony / Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division [ppmsca.07757].

Oscar Wilde

By Jon Pinnow
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Before Oscar Wilde wrote the comedy of manners “The Importance of Being Earnest,” he visited Leadville in 1882. It was, he said, “the richest city in the world.” Dressed in silk, velvet and lace, he lectured an audience of miners and shopkeepers at the Tabor Opera House about the Ethics of Art. The audience liked Oscar Wilde, and he liked them, saying “They were polished and refined compared to the people I met in larger cities in the East” He was invited to dinner, at the bottom of a silver mine, for a 3-course “meal” of whiskey, whiskey and whiskey. And Later, at a Leadville saloon, Wilde noticed a sign that read, “Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.” This, Wilde wrote, was “the only rational method of art criticism” he’d encountered.

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