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Lecture Tour of America 1882

Writing and Research on Oscar Wilde

Atchison

Kansas

Corinthian Hall

Saturday, April 22, 1882

The Decorative Arts

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Verification

Newspaper reports

The Atchison Globe, April 24, 1882, 1

The Chicago Tribune, April 24, 1882

The Herald-Dispatch (Decatur, IL) April 29, 1882, 7

Newspaper advertisement

Atchison Daily Champion, April 21, 1882, 1

Lecture subject corrected

Atchison Daily Champion, April 22, 1882, 4

Venue

Corinthian Hall

Fourth Street, between Kansas Avenue and Commercial Street (west side), Atchison, KS

Built: 1870-71 (Judge C. G. Foster, C. J. Drury, J. M. Linley) as an opera house

Premises: Second story above a stores occupied by Frank Howard and Janssen & Co.

Demolished: 1892 following the building's collapse

Related:

Matters and Things, a review of Oscar Wilde in Atchison.

Clipping:

Atchison Globe, April 24, 1892, 4

Accommodation

Byram Hotel or Otis House?

The report opposite states that Wilde’s supper was furnished by the steward at the Otis House, but this is not conclusive evidence that he stayed there—as there are others example of Wilde having food sent in.

The reason to doubt Otis House is that according to E. D. Howe of E. W. Howe’s Monthly in 1911 (reporting to the early Wilde researcher R. B. Glaenzer) Wilde stayed at Byram House. [1]

Further confusion is created by the publication in Atchison Globe (April 22, 1892, 1), of an obviously fake interview with Wilde supposedly at the Otis House.

Otis House was at the Corner of Commercial and Second Streets, Atchison, KS

Opened: May 1873 (Mr. Eldredge of Lawrence, KS)

Rooms: 113

Premises: Four stories

[1] Clark: G543z.C697, Box 2

John Cooper on Oscar Wilde © 2026