The Collection of a Connoisseur: History in Manuscript

The Collection of a Connoisseur: History in Manuscript

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 35. LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS | three autograph letters signed, to Mrs Mai Edge, 1924.

LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS | three autograph letters signed, to Mrs Mai Edge, 1924

Lot Closed

July 15, 01:33 PM GMT

Estimate

800 - 1,200 GBP

Lot Details

Description

DOUGLAS, LORD ALFRED


THREE AUTOGRAPH LETTERS SIGNED, TO MRS MAI EDGE


written shortly after his release from prison for libelling Winston Churchill, congratulating himself on having "achieved my object of putting Churchill out of political life, & I consider that 6 months was not too much to pay for this service to a very ungrateful country", praising his own sexual abstinence, and explaining Catholic teaching ("...'Birth Control' is a mortal sin to Catholics, & so is all form of sexual indulgence except the legitimate procreation of children in marriage..."), 12 pages, 4to and 8vo, 16 Draycott Place, London, and Wiltcher's Hotel, Brussels, 14 June to 21 October 1924, with one autograph envelope


"...Sexual indulgence kills the soul & ruins all the finer & more delicate perceptions..."


OSCAR WILDE'S FORMER LOVER ON SEXUAL ABSTINENCE. This correspondence, which exemplifies Douglas's narcissism and inflated self-importance, was precipitated when Mrs Edge sent him a pamphlet, presumably her Some Fallacies of Artificial Birth Control (1923).


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