Oscar Wilde—Lord Alfred Douglas | Autograph letter signed, by Douglas, to W.T. Stead, on his relationship with Wilde, 1895

Lord Alfred Douglas

Autograph letter signed, to W.T. Stead, an exceptional and revealing letter thanking Stead for his support in the aftermath of Oscar Wilde’s trial, writing with great passion and sorrow about his own suffering and Wilde’s imprisonment, apologising for his previous low opinion of Stead (“…I can even remember quarrelling with Oscar Wilde about you & reproaching him for what I thought was a paradoxical & sophistical defence of you sustained in a spirit of contradiction…”), and expressing his relief at news that Wilde has been moved to the prison infirmary (“…If only I could be sure that he is not likely to be removed from it and sent back to the original regime…”), 6 pages, 8vo (180 x 110 mm), Villa Caso, Capri, 15 November 1895, minor spotting and creasing

“…I know some of my fears are exaggerated and absurd, but I think there is no doubt that if one really loves anyone one feels any suffering he undergoes infinitely more than if one were undergoing oneself. What makes me more unhappy than anything else is the feeling that my friend is bearing nearly all the burden and I so comparatively little […] People look upon me as […] the victim of his superior age and wisdom and therefore an object of pity, while they reserve their execration for him. All this is so utterly wide of the real truth. So far from his leading me astray it was I that (unwittingly) pushed him over the precipice. He had lived 36 years without seeing me and then I came and dragged into his life all the influences of our morbid half insane heritage which reaches it highest point in that terrible father of mine, the most disagreeable of all lunatics because he will never do anything overtly insane enough to get himself shut up…”

AN EXCEPTIONALLY HONEST LETTER BY BOSIE ON HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH WILDE. This letter was written at a time when Oscar Wilde was in Wandsworth Prison following his conviction for gross indecency, had been declared bankrupt, and was in failing health as a result of the conditions of prison life. An attack of dysentery had necessitated Wilde's transfer to the prison infirmary. Douglas was forbidden by the prison authorities from corresponding with Wilde so was dependent on third parties for news of his lover's terrible predicament. Douglas is not an easily sympathetic character. He had encouraged Wilde's ill-fated libel action against his father but then evaded the consequences: whilst Wilde was languishing in jail, Douglas had exiled himself to a villa in Capri. Around the time of this letter he was also making plans to publish Wilde's love letters to him without Wilde's permission and in a manner that would do nothing to help Wilde and would heap further humiliation on his wife and family. The vanity, arrogance and greed Wilde describes in De Profundis are evident all too often in Douglas's behaviour and writing. However, Douglas wrote this letter at a time when he knew that Wilde had begun to dwell on his shortcomings and whilst the letter is hardly free of self-pity, it does show Douglas reflecting on the terrible harm he had inflicted on his lover.

Douglas's correspondent here was the pioneering investigative journalist W.T. Stead (1849–1912), who was then editor of The Pall Mall Gazette and Review of Reviews. Douglas had previously written to Stead on 28 June 1895 commenting at length on the extent of homosexuality in Britain, and defending its practice. Stead refused to publish the letter. It was produced as evidence against Douglas in his libel suit against Arthur Ransome in June 1913 (a year after Stead himself had drowned on the Titanic).

PROVENANCE:

Sale in these rooms, 19 July 1994, lot 150