The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas

by Alfred Bruce Douglas

“No other living creature has been treated as I have been treated, and has invoked in vain, as I have done, the law of his country to help him against a conspiracy of persecution and blackmail which has gone on for more than thirty years, and is still going on to this day.” So writes Lord Alfred Douglas in his memoir, originally published in 1929, in which he sought to rehabilitate his name and that of Oscar Wilde. One of the most notorious celebrities of his day, he was the amanuensis of Oscar Wilde and son of the man who ruined Wilde, Lord Queensbury. Recently the subject of the play ‘The Judas Kiss’, and portrayed in the film ‘Wilde’ by Jude Law, the man nicknamed ‘Bosie’ writes of his life and times, including a prison sentence for libel and the cause of Wilde’s incarceration at a time when homosexuality was an offense. Seeing himself as the victim of the Wilde scandal, Lord Alfred married and settled down to life as a poet, writer and magazine editor. He went bankrupt in 1913, was prosecuted for libel, notably against Winston Churchill, and spent time in the courts fighting to clear his damaged name. In his memoir he offers his own view on the events of the previous sixty years of his life using letters and articles. He also refutes the rumours spread by Wilde himself, including one where he denied receiving any money from his old friend in his final years. Almost a century on, and in a world where men can marry whomever they please, the life of Lord Alfred Douglas stands as a history of England before the modern era. ‘My Friendship with Oscar Wilde’ is an illuminating biography of one England’s most famous writers. It was first published in the UK as ‘The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas’. Lord Alfred Douglas (1870-1945) was a poet, magazine editor and writer. He befriended Oscar Wilde in a relationship which was seen as illegal in Britain at the time, and wrote several books about the friendship. He was editor of the magazine ‘The Academy’ before serving time in jail for libel. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction

340 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas was an British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. Much of his early poetry was Uranian in theme, though he tended, later in life, to distance himself from both Wilde's influence and his own role as a Uranian poet.

Reviews

[Marti · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is very hard to know the absolute truth. It becomes even harder when said truth is tainted by countless sets of ideas, words, and prejudices. The “truth” is nothing more than a word, subjective, and to each person, there is one truth. It is only natural, therefore, that one story can take different turns and styles depending on who is writing it.
De Profundis is a beautiful work of art, a piece that conveys the suffering and purest love of the one who wrote it. Many things have been said about that letter, but no one can deny it is a confession of pure and utter love. As it was made for one set of eyes only, one feels wicked while reading, like one is entering an intimate realm of which we were not meant to be a part. Bosie’s work is clearly made to be read, which makes it more bearable. It nevertheless managed to bring tears to my eyes, because of many reasons which I will now state.

- Bosie feels the need to excuse himself from his relationship with men, especially his relationship with Oscar Wilde because he lived in an era where said relationships meant time in prison. This to me is an inexcusable and wicked flaw in society, and I wish I could tell him and Wilde that there was nothing wrong whatsoever with the way they felt. In both De Profundis and Bosie’s work, we see a lot of pain and contempt for one another from both authors, but most of all one can read between the lines the love they had for each other. Wilde did not try to hide it, probably because, as I said, his letter was meant for Bosie only, but even Bosie in his attempt to downplay the whole thing as a “vice”, could not help but add that love he felt between his lines. A love that was corrupted by society and then by their friends, their enemies, and everyone else in between.
- Bosie feels angry at De Profundis, he feels angry that he will be remembered mostly because of his relationship with Oscar Wilde and he was right as he is, to this day, remembered by it. As I said, the truth isn’t, I don’t think, in either of the pieces, though I do feel for Bosie when he says he has been made the villain of the story because it’s true. Bosie is portrayed everywhere as this vicious man who corrupted Wilde and then abandoned him to his misery, a myth I have always known to be untrue or, at the very least, a very corrupted version of the truth. The other people who have played parts in this, such as Ross and Harris, had their own agenda and their reasons to attack or defend either man.
I do believe Bosie when he says he suffered immensely from this whole ordeal. I believe him when he says he never left Wilde, mostly because it has been proven. I am inclined to believe he did not receive De Profundis until much later, because it explains his angry reaction in writing Oscar Wilde and Myself.
I also believe Wilde when he says Bosie was spoiled, as being an aristocrat I expect no less. I believe the incidents both men portrayed to have some truth, and I definitely believe Ross played a huge part in turning them to each other. But most of it all, I believe it completely unfair that such a “sin” that today would have been seen as a simple (rather toxic) relationship, not only ruined the lives of two great authors and brought one to his death, but also will remain forever in history as the scandal it was at the time. I am glad we have come to such progress, but it saddens me to think of them living through this atrocious nightmare.

Love becomes such a wicked word when it is tainted by jealousy and fear, by public opinion.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bosie Douglas, well known for his role in Oscar Wilde's downfall, tends to be villainized by biographers and it's not difficult to understand why. Even in his own version of events he comes across as arrogant and snobbish. He was a self-confessed anti-Semitic whose preferred hobbies appeared to be gambling, suing people and being sued in return. It's also interesting that a man who claims to have so much merit as an artist was also so self-aware of the fact that people's interest in him largely revolved around his connection with Oscar, to the extent that even his own autobiography has Oscar's name in the title.

I'll be honest that I was often bored when reading this. The most interesting part of the book is the middle, when he recounts his involvement with Oscar and his own version of events. However, because Bosie outlived Oscar by quite a large margin, the last 40% of the book barely mentions him at all except to make snide comments or to mention that Oscar's name always seemed to come up in court whenever he was in the witness-box. Because of this, the last section really drags. I'm not even going to pretend I was interested in the chapters where he goes into detail about his time at the races and all the money he lost and won. The chapters about his wife are a little more interesting, but then we switch to a detailed account of the many court cases Bosie was involved in, and once again the book becomes monotonous. I also sensed he was running out of steam by the end, because his most notable legal case - the one involving Winston Churchill, aka the only one that's particularly interesting - is glossed over pretty quickly, probably because Bosie lost. After that he trails off into a pretty dismal ending in which he attempts to gloss over the fact that he'd basically alienated everyone at this point. By the time of his death, he was penniless and alone, and it's hard to say he didn't deserve it.

His arrogance is undeniable, but I actually think that was my favourite thing about the book. I couldn't help but laugh at how unapologetically up himself Bosie was, and I highlighted dozens of quotes where he extolls his own virtues with no self-consciousness whatsoever: his attractiveness, his intelligence, his artistic talent, his sense of humour. If there was anyone Bosie was truly in love with, it was undoubtedly himself. Here are some of my favourites:

"I have a stack of George Wyndham's letters in my possession. I offered them to those who were compiling a collection of his letters, but they did not appear to want them. It is rather amusing, because in a hundred, or even fifty, years they will be worth more than all of his other letters put together, just because they were written to me."

"There can be no object in pretending that I was not rather exceptionally good looking"

"I have no doubt that some of my critics will say that I ought not to have chosen letters which make flattering references to my personal appearance. My answer is twofold. In the first place, I cannot choose other letters which are free from such a reference, for the simple reason that they do not exist."

If you're interested in Wilde, this is probably worth the read just for a fresh perspective, but I can't pretend it clears the waters at all. The fact of the matter is that we're unlikely to know the whole truth of what happened - there are too many lies and obfuscations and way too much destroyed evidence - but this was an interesting read even so.

[Lauren (Shooting Stars Mag) Becker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Douglas had worked with another writer before this book where he allowed lies about his relationship to Oscar Wilde to be published. This autobiography, on the other hand, is Douglas much older and trying to finally reveal the truth of what he had gone through.

I will admit it's easy to see certain moments in this book as if Douglas is being self-pitying, but at the same time, he has a right to be in certain cases. Wilde told people that Douglas never helped him after he left prison, but Douglas denies this, saying he often gave Wilde money when he could. This book does make it seem as if some of Wilde's others friends used the Wilde name for their own use and that they treated Douglas badly because they blamed him for Wilde's arrest and subsequent incarceration.

I don't know as much about Wilde's history as I would like, but I do find it interesting, and in that, I have always been curious about Lord Alfred Douglas. I was excited that this autobiography had been released to the public again as it does add more to the overall history of the Wilde story. It's a difficult book to explain fully, and it can read a bit like a history textbook at times. Douglas also has a tendency to repeat himself at times, especially because not all of his stories are in direct chronological order. Despite this, I really enjoyed the book and I would recommend it to all those who are interested!

As for the Douglas/Wilde affair, Douglas is never really explicit about anything, but he does essentially admit to engaging in acts that he no longer agrees with later in life. He ends up getting married and becoming Catholic in the future. In the end, it seems that no matter which historical figure you believe or what you think of Douglas as a man, I believe it's obvious to see that Douglas did have problems after getting caught up with Oscar Wilde and this continued for many years to come.

*book sent for review; all opinions are still my own*

[Gio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lord Alfred Douglas was the amanuensis of Oscar Wilde and son of the man who ruined Wilde, Lord Queensbury. I picked up this book because I wanted to hear his side of the story. And boy, did I get more than I bargained for.

In his memoir, Donald set the record straight about the many lies that circulated about his relationship with Wilde, including ones he had previously helped spread. But the book starts way before that. The reader gets a glimpse of Donald's childhood and education, his conversion to Catholicism and his regret for the "sins" he committed in his youth, his marriage and divorce. In other words, you get to know the man during, before and after Oscar.

Although I found his story fascinating, I had a hard time coming to terms with the writing style. It's not just this book is written in the more flourishing language of the late '20s or that some passages read like a history textbook. No, it's that Douglas is a very bitter man. Reading the book feels like a friend complaining about hard and unjust his life was. And maybe, he had good reason to feel that way. But it doesn't make for the most engaging reading.

[Ja.Andre.ja · Rating 1 out of 5]

,,There was nothing I would not have done for him. It is a mere commonplace of truth to say that I would gladly have died for him, or gone to prison in his stead."

My Friendship with Oscar Wilde je poněkud zavádějící název, protože vztah těchto dvou dekadentů je zmíněn jen okrajově (o to zajímavější pak ale byl). Většina knihy se soustředí na autorův život, jeho křivdy, soudní procesy i světonázory, což mě však nebavilo, neboť jsem vnímala osobnost Alfreda "Bosieho" Douglase jako arogantní a sebestřednou. Podle jeho mínění byli všichni zlí nepřátelé, zatímco on byl chudáček, jemuž ohavní Angličané neustále ubližovali a kterému pouze nepřála štěstěna. Což je nepochopitelné, když je tak úžasný a neskonale geniální! Aby toho nebylo málo, tak se otevřeně hlásil k antisemitismu a popíral evoluci. (Obecně nad některými jeho názory zůstává rozum stát.)
☆ I was a good runner, and only the bad luck of being ill prevented me from doing well in the sports. (Chapter 4)
☆ I had published what even my worst enemies admit to be some of the finest poetry in the English literature. (Chapter 6)
☆ If I had gone into the box I would have won the case for Wilde. (Chapter 15)
☆ Oscar cared more for my little finger than he did for all the rest of these persons put together, body and soul. (Chapter 24)
☆ (Crossland) claimed that the best of my sonnets were equal to the best that had ever been written and that "several of them will endure as long as poetry is read and as long as English language is understood." (Chapter 34)
☆ That of course was sheer bad luck, as I would just as soon have made my bid 10,000 or 12,000 francs if Woodhouse had named that price. (Chapter 28)
☆ I was an exceptionally good witness. (Chapter 35)
☆ In this case I was cross-examined by Sir Patrick Hastings, and I may say without fear of contradiction that I "wiped the floor with him" almost as effectually as I did in the case of Marshall Hall. (Chapter 44)

Mohu potvrdit, že Bosie byl fešák, a je mi jasné, že si své přednosti si uvědomoval. Ostatně jeho posedlost vlastním vzhledem je v knize poměrně nepřehlédnutelná:
☆ There can be no object in pretending that I was not rather exceptionally good-looking as a boy, and it is a fact that I went on preserving my looks and youthful appearance in a truly remarkable way right up till the time I reached the forties. (Chapter 4)
☆ I was exactly the type that attracts boys and men quite as much as it attracts women and girls. (Chapter 4)
☆ I think it is certain that [...] I really loved him far more than he loved me. His love for me [...] was yet chiefly founded on his mere admiration for what he chose to consider my personal beauty. [...] On the other hand, whatever devotion I had for Oscar was certainly (and surely I may say quite obviously) not founded on any physical admiration of mine for him. (Chapter 22)
☆ I have no doubt that some of my critics will say that I ought not to have chosen letters which make flattering reference to my personal appearance. [...] I cannot choose other letters which are free from such a reference, for the simple reason that they do not exist. (Chapter 31)

Nemohu si však odpustit slova, která pronesl lord Henry v Obrazu Doriana Graye: ,,Je smutné si to připomínat, ale duch má beze sporu delší trvání než krása." A to je právě ono. Bosie ve své knize samozřejmě nezmiňuje, že právě on ukázal Oscarovi svět homosexuální prostituce apod., ani příliš nereflektuje, že se často choval opravdu sobecky. Už jeho matka varovala Wilda v jednom ze svém dopisu, že Alfred je marnivý a jeho život se točí pouze kolem peněz a že právě on zdědil fatální temperament rodu Douglasů.
Wilde ho ve svém díle De profundis popsal zase takto: ,,Your desires were simply for amusements, for ordinary or less ordinary pleasures. They were what your temperament needed, or thought it needed for the moment."

Jsem ráda, že jsem tuto autobiografii dočetla do konce, protože mě, jak jsem již zmínila, vůbec nebavila. Každopádně co se týče historického hlediska, domnívám se, že pravda oněch událostí přebývá ve středu Vennových diagramů složených z vyjádřeních Bosieho, Wilda, Rosieho a dalších zúčastněných osob. Přece jen kdo může říct, že zrovna jeho pohled úhledu na svět je ten správný?

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was interesting. Most of it was repetition for me, as I recently read a biography of Douglas by M. Montgomery Hyde, but there were certain aspects which were left out in that biography, or passages which weren’t quoted and which I thought here were quite compelling. I also was glad to be able to tell what aspects of Douglas’ life he left out of this autobiography, noticeable because I’d read a detailed biography of him that didn’t skip over any time periods. It tells you something about a person, to know what they pick and choose to tell about their life and themselves to the world. Despite the book’s length, it was a quick read and very readable. Unlike in his letters to Shaw, Douglas comes across as quite egotistical, spoiled, petty, “aristocratic[ally] insolen[t]”, and self-pitying, but I feel he has justification for that in some respects, and, it is, of course, his personality, which he can’t very well change. I think I got a deeper understanding of his character and psychology from reading this, too, especially from that quotation below about his “sex psychology”. I couldn’t help thinking, as I have before, that he seems so childish and stunted in some ways, in the way he perceives things and reacts to things, and I find that really interesting. This isn’t a fantastic book by any means, but it provides Douglas’ own perspective on the events of his life (and I do feel much more blame and rancor has been heaped on him from the Wilde affair than is in any way deserved), and it has historical interest, while being relatively entertaining.

Quotations:

“What was lacking in my home was a father. My mother’s spoiling would not have harmed me if my father had been a real father, and had ever taken half as much interest in his children as he did in his dogs and his horses. As it was, I scarcely ever saw him; and when, for the first time in his life, he suddenly tried to exert his authority over me in a very violent way (I am referring to the occasion when he suddenly ordered me to give up my friendship with Oscar Wilde), I defied him, and he ruthlessly and deliberately ruined my life. All through my childhood and youth the shadow of my father lay over me, for though I loved him, and had indeed a quite absurd admiration for his supposed heroic qualities, I could not be blind to his infamous treatment of my mother, even long before she was driven to divorce him, which took place when I was sixteen.” (16)

“When I was a boy at Winchester and at Oxford I had many fine friendships, perfectly normal, wholesome, and not in the least sentimental. I had other friendships which were sentimental and passionate, but perfectly pure and innocent. Such was my friendship with Wellington Cotton. I had others again which were neither pure nor innocent. But if it is to be assumed from this that I was ‘abnormal’ or ‘degenerate’ or exceptionally wicked, then it must also be assumed that at least ninety per cent of my contemporaries at Winchester and Oxford were the same.” (26)

“In addition to that the judge allowed the whole of the unpublished portion of the letter known as De Profundis, written to me (but which I never received, as it remained in the hands of Robert Ross) by Oscar Wilde in prison, to be used as evidence against me. For two hours I sat in the witness-box and listened to the poisonous stream of wild lies and grotesque accusations which Wilde, in his rage and despair at the situation he found himself in, had committed to paper in his prison cell, although in the last letter he wrote to me before his conviction he had told me for the hundredth time that his only hope of living through any sentence he might get was that I would stick to him and that he might one day just see me again and touch my hand. I remember this passage from the letter: ‘Child of all my imagination, little delicate flower, I am going to test the power of love, I am going to see if I cannot make the bitter waters sweet by the intensity of the love I bear you.’ In another letter of the same period he said: ‘None of God’s created things, and you are the Morning Star of Life, has been so wildly worshipped, so madly adored.’ In another letter he called me ‘My darling child, with Christ’s own heart in you.’” (35)

“The gentle Harris and others who are so ready, for reasons best known to themselves, to fling at me the accusation of having ‘ruined’ Wilde and ‘sacrificed’ him to gratify my ‘hatred of my father,’ overlook the fact that the numerous boys in respect of whom he was accused and convicted one and by all became his accusers. It was they that ‘gave him away,’ and gave evidence against him in the witness-box. All I did was to stick to him through thick and thin and to offer, and indeed beg to be allowed, to go into the witness-box to defend him.” (62)

“Ross was by way of being devoted to me in those days. If I had followed his example, and kept the letters he wrote to me, I could have showed that he professed devotion and admiration for me in as extravagant terms as those used by Wilde. It was I that made Ross socially, for but for me he would never have got to know the people in ‘Society’ whose countenance he so skilfully exploited in later years. I brought him to my mother’s house in Cadogan Place, where he met a lot of people whom (without any desire to be snobbish) I can only describe as being in a much higher class than himself. I also, later, introduced him to the Glenconners, through whom he became very friendly with Mrs Asquith, who was his principal stand-by after his debacle in 1914, and who also signed the celebrated ‘Testimonial’ which was given to him after his exposure at the Old Bailey.
“In the early days I was very fond of Ross, and it is difficult for me to realize, even now, that he was the same man who afterwards treated me in so cruel and abominable a fashion. I cannot recall another instance of such a complete change of character as that which took place in this nervous, affectionate, sentimental and emotional little man, between the time when I first met him and the last twelve years of his life. The last time I sent eyes on him in 1914 at the Old Bailey he was, I must say, not a pleasant object to behold. It would have been impossible to recognize the slender, attractive, impulsive boy I had once known in this sinister-looking, bloated and bald-headed person, with his snaky eyes, his round bulging face and body, and his nigger-like mouth and teeth.” (70-1) Yikes.

“If he had left me alone, and refrained from publishing the scandal to the whole world, my friendship with Wilde, which had already become quite harmless many months before the final catastrophe, would no doubt have gradually cooled off. It was not likely that I could have gone on indefinitely keeping up a sentimental friendship with a man whose ideas of what he describes in the ‘unpublished part’ of De Profundis as his ‘great love’ for me could yet allow him to live the kind of life of promiscuous nastiness with a dozen or more boy paramours which was revealed in his trial. The emotion of the great crisis fanned the waning fires of our devotion to each other. I was before the trial beginning to be a little tired of Oscar’s ‘going on’ (even allowing for the fact that he of course concealed his ‘infidelities’ as much as he could). We had had several acrimonious quarrels. In the ordinary course of events my infatuation for him would have worn out, and obviously his for me was a very much less enduring and tremendous affair than he himself imagined it to be. If it had not been so, he would scarcely have made such a complete volte-face in his attitude towards me after being in prison only nine months.” (121-2)

“Harris points out in the ‘New Preface’ to The Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde that Oscar after he came out of prison consistently behaved in a double-faced way about me. He wrote me a quantity of letters from Berneval, during the first three months after his release from prison, and before he met me again, in which he addressed me in the most affectionate terms. At the very same time he was thus writing to me, calling me ‘My own darling Boy’ and so forth, he was, as I only found out years afterwards, writing Ross abusive letters about me. Later, when he was taking large sums of money from me in Paris, he went about telling various people (everyone he met, apparently) that I had not given him a penny and that I refused to help him. As Harris says: ‘Such falseness and treachery are hard even to understand, but the facts remain.’
“In view of all these facts, and the utter unreliability as witnesses of both Ross and of Wilde himself, I do not see how it is possible that the real truth as to the De Profundis business can ever be known this side of the Day of Judgement.” (134)

“In Oscar Wilde and Myself I not only ran down Wilde unfairly—even to the extent of belittling some of his literary work which I place very much higher than I have there allowed—but I entirely misrepresented the strength of my own love and devotion for him, which persisted right up to the time when I read the ‘unpublished’ De Profundis in 1913. In doing this I did less than justice to myself, because the only explanation of much of my conduct in regard to him is precisely that I really was (as I said once, in one of my cases, in the witness-box) ‘crazy about the man.’ The truth was that I really adored him. I think it is fairly certain that in spite of all his protestations about his ‘wonderful love’ for me I really loved him far more than he loved me. His love for me, even allowing for the undoubted fact that pain and suffering did, for a time, transfigure it and touch it to finer issues, was yet chiefly founded on his mere admiration for what he chose to consider my personal beauty. I am sorry to have to say it, but I cannot but feel that the explanation of the shocking way he behaved to me, and about me, during the last two or three years of his life, after he came out of prison, was simply that I was no longer quite so attractive in appearance as when he first met me. There is a passage in Dorian Gray which gives quite plainly his own views on this point. Lord Henry says to Basil Halward (I quote from memory, for I have not read Dorian Gray for more than twelve years): ‘One day you will look at your friend and observe that his nose is a little out of drawing. You will resent it bitterly and feel that he has behaved very badly to you.’
“On the other hand, whatever devotion I had for Oscar was certainly (and surely I may say quite obviously) not founded on any physical admiration of mine for him. I loved him because he was brilliant and wonderful and fantastic and fascinating in his mind and in his conversation. His personal appearance, at any rate while I knew him, was always rather against him. When I first met him I thought him comic-looking. Afterwards I got used to his strange aspect, and my admiration for his brain and the dazzling brilliance and spell-weaving enchantment of his conversation completely outweighed in my eyes the disadvantages of his appearance. When he got into his frightful trouble my love for him was deeply intensified by pity and compassion. There was nothing I would not have done for him. It is a mere commonplace of truth to say that I would gladly have died for him, or gone to prison in his stead.” (138-9)

“That Oscar did really die a Catholic (being received into the Church by a Franciscan on his deathbed, and while he was unable to speak, but still able to make signs) I now believe, though for a long time I doubted the genuineness and validity of his reception.” (142)

“As it is the fashion for the Ross-Harris school of Wilde worshippers to assert that I ‘ruined Oscar Wilde’ I may observe that it would, on the same principle, be easy for me to argue that Oscar Wilde not only ruined me, but also my whole family. The Ross-Harris argument, reduced to its ultimate form, is: that if Wilde had never met me my father would never have interfered with him, and that in that case he would never have been exposed and ruined. . . . Following the same line of ‘reasoning’ I might say that if I had never met Wilde I would never have quarrelled with my father and been ‘saved’ (in plain English, ruined) by him, that my brother Percy by espousing my cause would never have become involved in a lifelong feud with my father, and that but for this feud there would have been a proper resettlement of the property on to Percy’s son, the present Marquis, which would have made it impossible for the property which had been in the Douglas family for so many hundred years to have been alienated from that family forever.
“However, this sort of speculation as to what might have been, if something else had not happened, is fruitless and foolish.” (184-5)

“The second reason for the lines into which our courtship period fell is to be found, I believe, in the obscure psychology of sex. I believe that everyone is more or less bi-sexual. All my life, up till two or three years ago, I have angrily and violently resented the suggestion that I ever had anything feminine about me. If anyone wanted to ‘get a rise’ out of me, at any time from my schooldays onwards, the way to do it was to make some such suggestion. When I was a schoolboy I was so determined to be ‘manly’ that I deliberately went about insufficiently clothed in winter. . . .
“Well, within the last two or three years, having got into a backwater of life, and being determined if possible to look steadily at everything, I have come to the conclusion that I really have all the time had a great deal of the feminine in my nature. What is more, I believe that I have been most successful in life when, acting naturally and without thinking what I was doing, I have allowed this part of my nature to assert itself. ‘Letting myself go,’ so to speak. Everyone should try to control his nature, but to try to distort it or force it is a great mistake, and leads to all sorts of miseries and misunderstandings, both for oneself and for others. . . .
“It also occurs to me with great force that what Harris calls ‘insane courage and aristocratic contempt for convention’ are really feminine qualities and not masculine. The average woman is far braver than the average man. The common kind of courage—that of the soldier who disregards the danger of death—belongs to the majority of men in the last resort. I mean that if it has to be exercised they exercise it without making a fuss about it. But when you come to moral courage it hardly exists at all among men. There is only one man in ten thousand who will brave the full violence of public opinion. Women, on the other hand, will often do it, if they are in love or to defend their children. I used to think that the Englishman was the most cowardly creature (morally speaking) on earth. But I believe now I was doing him an injustice. Moral cowardice . . . is characteristic, with exceptions of course, of men as opposed to women. . . .
“. . . I have been chaste, solely through religion, for fourteen years roughly, and I am therefore able to look dispassionately at my own sex psychology. Looking back at it from these serene heights, I am able to see, what I would have probably indignantly denied at the time when I was in the vortex, that up till the time when I became a Catholic the guiding principle of my life was the desire to be loved and admired. . . . Whether I liked it or not, I did for years attract persons of both sexes with a very powerful attraction. When I was at Oxford I even suffered greatly from the jealousy of my friends. Each was anxious that I should believe that he was the friend to the exclusion of others. It was a common experience for me (so common indeed that I used to enjoy ecstasies of secret laughter every time it occurred) for a friend to warn me against other friends. Then, when (as of course was bound to happen) the friend realized that he was not accepted at his own valuation, and to the exclusion of others, he had a grievance against me, and very often ended by nearly disliking me.
“What kept me away from girls at the period of my life . . . which I have now reached in these memoirs . . . was just that I did not for a moment intend to put up with less love and admiration from a girl than I had been in the habit of getting (without any conscious effort on my part) from innumerable male friends. I certainly was not going to marry any girl who did not get at least as sentimental about me as my friends at Oxford, and later, had been in the habit of getting. This is only another way of saying that I was very spoilt, and that I was determined, in so far as I thought about it at all, to have nothing but the very creme de la creme in the way of marriageable love.” (212-5)

“All his best sonnets were written when he was with me on The Academy. He [Crosland] had what I can only describe as a slightly defective ear for rhythm, as far as his own work was concerned. It appeared to be impossible for him to produce a sonnet which did not contain at least one line with too many feet in it. As long as he was with me I used to employ every art I possessed in the way of tact and cajolery and argument to make him correct these blemishes. He would argue fiercely that they were not blemishes and that he wrote the lines in question in that way ‘on purpose to produce a rugged effect.’ If everything else failed, I used to adopt an air of aggrieved resignation (Crosland called it ‘sulking’). In the end I invariably got my way, and he would change the sonnet according to my wishes. The result is that all the sonnets he wrote for The Academy are correct in form, and every single one he wrote for other papers is incorrect in form.” (227) This is honestly really cute and funny.

“[Crosland] was the most strange and uncouth-looking person I have ever seen. He was always untidy, and somehow conveying the impression that he had been to bed in his clothes; his hair hung dankly over his forehead, and when annoyed he had a positively ferocious aspect. On the other hand he was sometimes unexpectedly soft-hearted, and had many generous impulses and feelings. His appearance when he was ‘smartened up’ and forced into evening dress, I myself having tied his tie and brushed his hair—a process which occasionally took place, with many groans and protestations on his part, when I was going to drag him out to dinner to meet respectable people or got to the theatre—was really not bad at all; and he had fine eyes.” (230-1) Hilarious imagery.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If ever I saw a man with a chip on his shoulder then this is the one. Lord Alfred Douglas’s memoir, first published in 1926, was his attempt to vindicate himself, not only as regards his ill-starred friendship with Oscar Wilde, but to every single relationship he ever had. Never have I read an account of someone who blames the world and his wife for everything that happens to him quite so much. As far as he’s concerned he is always, but always, totally blameless. And the greatest poet. And the cleverest man at getting one over on everyone. Always sinned against but never sinning. Quite a guy. Makes for some truly fascinating reading, and this book will appeal not only to Oscar Wilde enthusiasts but it can stand alone as the epitome of self-pity and self-justification. Compelling reading.

[ella]

i had no idea an autobiography could have this much chaotic energy.

[marisabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leída en PDF, tenía miedo al inicio de no entender todas las palabras inglesas pero no fue tan complicado. Bosie es sin duda un personaje en todo el sentido de la palabra. De más esta decir que se victimiza en practicamente cada capítulo, algo ya propio de su personalidad, aunque me dio algo de pena ver como trataba de excusar su homosexualidad siempre que tocaba el tema, hubiera sido muy divertido leer su versión sobre el pasado si no se hubiera hecho católico! Cada vez que mencionaba alguna "amistad", solo pensaba wow que gay, como con lo de Shepard y el apodo de "Puppy-dog".

Es tambien muy impulsivo, dios perdí la cuenta de las veces que se metió a juicio con alguien, es hasta cómico como se refiere al tema: It is not true that I am a man who is “always libelling people.” What is true is that I am a man who is always being libelled. ???? OK si tu lo dices Alfred. También escribió: So find we profit by losing of our prayers, and also by losing of our law-suits— sometimes.. Es MUY gracioso, aunque tambien muy raro, en algún punto pensó en convertirse en santo??? la verdad dudo que los santos le recen a San Antonio de Padua solo para pedirle que los ratones no entren en su cuarto. Ahora que lo pienso, puede que haya tenido algun problemilla mental porque en serio no es normal este hombre, y considerando que tiene dos suicidas en su familia (su abuelo y su hermano) y que su hijo tuvo una enfermedad mental, algo debe haber heredado por ahí, en serio.

Bueno, en parte tenía miedo de perder total interés cuando dejara de hablar de Wilde, es decir la etapa posterior a su muerte, pero la historia de su matrimonio con Olive es muy entretenida!! Incluso puso sus cartas, que linda es Opal, me cae aún mejor tras descubrir que ella tambien era medio bisexuala, bueno algo se podía inferir... (But how could I know or guess that the very thing she loved in me was that which I was always trying to suppress and keep under: I mean the feminine part of me? As soon as I was married I deliberately tried to be more and more manly. The more manly I became the less attractive I was to Olive.). Aún así, me aburrió un poco que se extendiera tanto en cosas tan simples, a nadie le importan las carreras de caballos, no necesitamos un capitulo entero dedicado a eso.

Bueno yendo al punto principal por el que comencé a leer este libro, además de conocer a Alfred Douglas con sus propias palabras, definitivamente puedo decir que si amó a Oscar. Le creo su amor porque se enfrentó a su padre, le rogó a su hermano que intercediera por él y hasta a su madre, renunció a sus mesadas y siempre estuvo decidido a defenderlo cuando todo el tema explotó y Oscar fue a prisión. Aunque sin duda era muy caprichoso, se hubieran ahorrado mucho si el amor le hubiera ganado al odio, el juicio a su padre estaba totalmente de más, su reputación salió afectada a largo plazo gracias no solo a Wilde (que lo que escribió verdaderamente no lo meditó, sino no hubiera regresado con Alfred) sino a sus amigos que siempre tuvieron ventaja al contar dicha versión infinitas veces, publicando convenientemente solo aquello que la favorece. Tiene sentido que se haya enterado de la existencia de De Profundis en el Juicio de Ransome, porque explica su berrinche en Oscar Wilde and Myself (que leí hace años y planeo releer), aunque de ahí en adelante parece entrar en una lucha por "limpiar" su nombre y luchar contra la narrativa que, según él, Ross impuso desde que se quedó con sus cartas. Un poco si tiene razón porque desde siempre lo primero que se dice cuando se habla del tema Oscar&Bosie es que Bosie es el twink malvado que llevó a la ruina a Wilde etc etc, justo por eso ahora estoy en el proceso de leer desde todos los puntos de vista que pueda, a ver si consigo reconstruir la historia de forma imparcial.

Me dio mucha pena leer como se arrepentía de haber quemado las cartas de Oscar por vergüenza (de lo que nos perdimos...). También el último párrafo -refiriéndose a De Profundis- me dejo muy triste: If I had received the letter, the whole course of subsequent history might have been altered. My indignation at Wilde’s grotesque lies and misrepresentations, and his abuse and insults, would perhaps have cured me once for all of my infatuation for him, which still survived so strongly in those days. Again, on the other hand, it is possible, and indeed probable, that I would have forgiven him.

[燕南 · Rating 3 out of 5]

閱讀過程中很容易就能察覺他（在關於王爾德和羅斯的部分）敘述中態度的矛盾，要說可信度的話，或許比《自深深處》還要低；他本人性格倒是躍然紙上。這居然是他態度軟化之後寫的，不敢想像他先前是什麼表現……