Oscar Wilde’s 1882 tour of North America took the young lecturer on decorative art from New York to San Francisco and scores of cities in between. Lincoln, Nebraska was just another stop on the itinerary, but one that has been of special interest to Wilde’s biographers. This is chiefly because of Wilde’s visit to the Nebraska State Penitentiary, which has often been framed as prefiguring Wilde’s own stint behind bars after his 1895 conviction for ‘gross indecency’ (Richard Ellmann, in particular, was quick to identify any possible ‘tragic prolepsis’ in Wilde’s life). While perusing the cells at Lincoln Wilde spotted a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and remarked that it was...