Advertisement

Letters: When Oscar Wilde visited

Share via

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.

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement

ALSO:

Letters: Vietnam today

Letters: Mistreating those who serve

Letters: From pothole to pothole we go

Advertisement