Details
LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS (1870-1945)
Four autograph letters signed ("Alfred Douglas"), to Mr Harrison, together 21 pp., 8°, Shelley's Folly, Lewes, Jan 10th, 13th 1917 and March 13th, 1918 and The Douglas Hotel, Galashiels, March 27th, 1918.
Concerning the English language, literature, poetry, ideas, his writings and the work of other writers.
The second letter, entitled "Private", discussing his views on Wilde, "My point of view about the Wilde business & its "legacy" is the "old-fashioned" one which as a Catholic I am bound to take. The fact that I used to take quite another view of it only shows what a tremendous force there is in religion. If you ignore all that, & take up the attitude that morality is all a "fuss about nothing" you are simply cutting yourself off from the possibility of understanding the motive force which shapes the ideas & actions of at least a third part of the human race ... I thought the way my book "Oscar Wilde & Myself" was treated in the English Review was both unfair and ungenerous considering the position I was in at the time. But then your whole attitude in the Review is puzzling to me. You are so right about some things & so frightfully I won't say wrong but deliberately on the wrong side about others." (4)
Four autograph letters signed ("Alfred Douglas"), to Mr Harrison, together 21 pp., 8°, Shelley's Folly, Lewes, Jan 10th, 13th 1917 and March 13th, 1918 and The Douglas Hotel, Galashiels, March 27th, 1918.
Concerning the English language, literature, poetry, ideas, his writings and the work of other writers.
The second letter, entitled "Private", discussing his views on Wilde, "My point of view about the Wilde business & its "legacy" is the "old-fashioned" one which as a Catholic I am bound to take. The fact that I used to take quite another view of it only shows what a tremendous force there is in religion. If you ignore all that, & take up the attitude that morality is all a "fuss about nothing" you are simply cutting yourself off from the possibility of understanding the motive force which shapes the ideas & actions of at least a third part of the human race ... I thought the way my book "Oscar Wilde & Myself" was treated in the English Review was both unfair and ungenerous considering the position I was in at the time. But then your whole attitude in the Review is puzzling to me. You are so right about some things & so frightfully I won't say wrong but deliberately on the wrong side about others." (4)