Cambridge, MA: OxCam New England Oscar Wilde Themed Cemetery Walk

Members are invited to join an Oscar Wilde themed walking tour of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge at 3pm on Saturday October 28 (rain date will be Saturday November 4th at 3pm, decision by 10am on the 28th). This is a reprise of our successful and oversubscribed 2021 event.

Participation is limited to fifteen, please register no more than one additional guest. When you sign up, you will be sent directions to our meeting point and parking information. The cost of the event is $15 per person (which will be donated to Mount Auburn Cemetery). We will finish around 4:30pm and attendees will receive signed copies of Professor Tipper's booklet 'Passages'.

After winning the prestigious Newdigate prize for his poem, Ravenna, at Oxford in 1878 and achieving a rare double first in Mods and Greats, Oscar Wilde knew he did not want to be a “dried-up don.” Instead he set his sights on becoming famous—and if not famous, notorious––as a poet, a writer, a dramatist. A lack of money was an impediment, however, and when a lucrative offer came from Richard D’Oyle Carte in 1883 to lecture on aestheticism in America Wilde jumped at the chance. D’Oyle Carte was staging Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience in New York and needed to provide his audiences with some understanding of the art for art’s sake movement. Wilde not only needed the money but also the fame that came from meeting notable Americans, particularly in New England. Six people who entertained Wilde now lie buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, and the people and their monuments will be the focus of a tour conducted by Meg Winslow, Curator of Historical Collections at the Cemetery, and Sasha Tipper, a Wilde scholar and former president of our Society.

Date:Saturday, October 28

Time: 3:00pm - 4:30pm ET

Location: Mount Auburn Cemetery (Meeting point will be disclsoed in registration email)

For more information contact secretary@oxcamne.org.