Alfred Douglas

LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS (1870-1945)
The Complete Works of Lord Alfred Douglas
Publisher: Martin Secker, London
Publication Date: 1928
Binding: Hard Cover
Illustrator: Frontispiece Portrait By Walter Spindler
Signed: Inscribed and Signed By Author

Fair/No Jacket. Original grey boards with tan spine. Small portions of backstrip missing at top (see photos). Inscribed to “Philip Page from his friend Alfred Douglas 1931” in ink, on first front free endpaper. Douglas pans the “Art for Art’s Sake” and anti-formal heresies, of which he names Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman, respectively, as representatives. Dozens of Douglas’ own poems, with the first, “Apologia”, being in repudiation of some of his earlier work. 226 pp.

This scarce book of his own poetry is signed by Lord Alfred Douglas, the intimate companion and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. It is inscribed to literary critic Philip Page and comes to us from the estate of American actress Clare Boothe Luce, who was a close friend of Page.

About Alfred Douglas

LORD ALFRED BRUCE DOUGLAS (1870-1945), was a British writer who first came to prominence in the 1890s as the young intimate companion of Oscar Wilde. After Douglas’ father, the 9th Marquess of Queensbury, publicly accused Wilde of sodomy, Wilde filed the libel lawsuit that led to his own conviction and two-year prison term for indulging in “the love that dare not speak its name.”

During the later part of 1897, Wilde and Douglas lived together near Naples, but for financial and other reasons, they separated. Wilde lived the remainder of his life primarily in Paris, and Douglas returned to England in late 1898. Douglas published several volumes of poetry, two books about his relationship with Wilde, and an autobiography.

Douglas in any form is quite rare, and with its association to Bosie’s friend the literary critic Philip Page, makes this fine letter a perfect collectible for fans of Oscar Wilde.

Accompanied by adjoining cut sections of an aged vintage newspaper clipping from The (London) Daily Mail dated July 4, 1941, of the published poem “Winston Churchill” by Lord Alfred Douglas, with notations in green ink beneath reading “P Page, affection, reconciliation.” Reverse side of the clipping features a story on the historic Nazi surrender of Palmyra to British forces.

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