Impressions of America

"Impressions of America" is a sketch by famed Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde about his visit to America in 1882. Interest in the Aesthetic School of literature, of which he was already the acknowledged master, had sometime previously spread to the United States, and it is said that the production of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera, "Patience,' in which he and his disciples were held up to ridicule, fired him to pay a visit to the States to give some lectures explaining what he meant by Aestheticism, hoping thereby to interest, and possibly to instruct and elevate his American audience.