Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas | |
---|---|
Born | Powick, Worcestershire, England | 22 October 1870
Died | 20 March 1945 Lancing, Sussex, England | (aged 74)
Resting place | Friary Church of St Francis and St Anthony, Crawley |
Occupation | Poet |
Nationality | British |
Education | Winchester College, Wixenford School |
Alma mater | Magdalen College, Oxford |
Spouse | |
Parents | The 9th Marquess of Queensberry Sibyl Montgomery |
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945), also known as Bosie Douglas, was an English poet and journalist, and a lover of
On converting to
Early life and background
Douglas was born at Ham Hill House in Powick, Worcestershire, the third son of John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry and his first wife, Sibyl Montgomery.
He was his mother's favourite child; she called him Bosie (a derivative of "boysie", as in boy), a nickname which stuck for the rest of his life.[1] His mother successfully sued for divorce in 1887 on the grounds of his father's adultery.[2] The Marquess later married Ethel Weeden in 1893 but the marriage was annulled the following year.
Douglas was educated at Wixenford School,[3] Winchester College (1884–88) and Magdalen College, Oxford (1889–93), which he left without obtaining a degree. At Oxford, he edited an undergraduate journal, The Spirit Lamp (1892–3), an activity that intensified the constant conflict between him and his father. Their relationship had always been a strained one and, during the Queensberry-Wilde feud, Douglas sided with Wilde, even encouraging Wilde to prosecute the Marquess for libel. In 1893, Douglas had a brief affair with George Ives.
In 1858 his grandfather,
Relationship with Wilde
In 1891, Douglas's cousin
Douglas has been described as spoiled, reckless, insolent and extravagant.[14] He would spend money on boys and gambling and expected Wilde to contribute to funding his tastes. They often argued and broke up, but would always be reconciled.
Douglas had praised Wilde's play Salome in the Oxford magazine The Spirit Lamp, of which he was editor. Wilde had originally written Salomé in French, and in 1893 he commissioned Douglas to translate it into English. Douglas's French was very poor and his translation was highly criticised; for example, a passage that runs "On ne doit regarder que dans les miroirs" ("One should look only in mirrors") he rendered "One must not look at mirrors". Douglas was angered at Wilde's criticism, and claimed that the errors were in fact in Wilde's original play. This led to a hiatus in the relationship and a row between the two, with angry messages being exchanged and even the involvement of the publisher John Lane and the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley when they themselves objected to the poor standard of Douglas's work. Beardsley complained to Robbie Ross: "For one week the numbers of telegraph and messenger boys who came to the door was simply scandalous". Wilde redid much of the translation himself, but in a gesture of reconciliation suggested that Douglas be dedicated as the translator rather than be credited, along with him, on the title page. Accepting this, Douglas, vainly likened the difference between sharing the title page and having a dedication to "the difference between a tribute of admiration from an artist and a receipt from a tradesman".[14]
In 1894, Douglas came and visited Oscar Wilde in Worthing, to the consternation of the latter's wife Constance.[15]
On another occasion, while staying with Wilde in
Alfred's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, suspected the liaison to be more than a friendship. He sent his son a letter, attacking him for leaving Oxford without a degree and failing to take up a proper career. He threatened to "disown [Alfred] and stop all money supplies." Alfred responded with a telegram rudely stating: "What a funny little man you are."
Queensberry's next letter threatened his son with a "thrashing" and accused him of being "crazy". He also threatened to "make a public scandal in a way you little dream of" if he continued his relationship with Wilde.
Queensberry was well known for his short temper and threatening to beat people with a horsewhip. Alfred sent his father a postcard stating "I detest you" and making it clear that he would take Wilde's side in a fight between him and the Marquess, "with a loaded revolver".
In answer Queensberry wrote to Alfred (whom he addressed as "You miserable creature") that he had divorced Alfred's mother so as not to "run the risk of bringing more creatures into the world like yourself" and that when Alfred was a baby, "I cried over you the bitterest tears a man ever shed, that I had brought such a creature into the world, and unwittingly committed such a crime.... You must be demented."
Douglas's eldest brother Francis Viscount Drumlanrig died in a suspicious hunting accident in October 1894, as rumours circulated that he had been having a homosexual relationship with the Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, and that the cause of death was suicide. The Marquess of Queensberry thus embarked on a campaign to save his other son and began a public persecution of Wilde. Wilde had been openly flamboyant and his actions made the public suspicious even before the trial.[16] The Marquess and a bodyguard confronted Wilde in Wilde's home; later, Queensberry planned to throw rotten vegetables at Wilde on the first night of The Importance of Being Earnest, but forewarned of this, Wilde was able to deny him access to the theatre.
Queensberry then publicly insulted Wilde by leaving at the latter's club a visiting card on which he had written, "For Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite [sic]". The wording is in dispute – the handwriting is unclear – although Hyde reports it as this. According to Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, it is more likely "Posing somdomite", while Queensberry himself claimed it to be "Posing as somdomite". Holland suggests that this wording ("posing [as] ...") would have been easier to defend in court.
1895 trials
With Douglas's avid support, but against the advice of friends such as
Queensberry's attorney announced in court that he had located several male prostitutes who were to testify that they had had sex with Wilde. Wilde's lawyers advised him that this would make a conviction on the libel charge very unlikely; he then dropped the libel charge, on his lawyers' advice, to avoid further pointless scandal. Without a conviction, the libel law of the time left Wilde liable to pay Queensberry's considerable legal costs, leaving him
Douglas's September 1892 poem "Two Loves" (published in the Oxford magazine The Chameleon in December 1894) was used against Wilde at the latter's trial. It ends with the famous line that calls homosexuality the love that dare not speak its name, which is often attributed wrongly to Wilde. Wilde gave an eloquent but counter-productive explanation of the nature of this love on the witness stand. The trial resulted in a hung jury.
In 1895, when Wilde was released on bail during his trials, Douglas's cousin
. Douglas was forced into exile in Europe.While in prison, Wilde wrote Douglas a long and critical letter entitled De Profundis, describing how he felt about him. Wilde was not permitted to send it but it might have been sent to him after Wilde's release. It was given to Robbie Ross with instructions to make a copy and send the original to Lord Alfred Douglas. Lord Alfred Douglas later said that he received only a letter from Ross with a few choice quotations and did not know there was a letter until reference was made to it in a biography of Wilde's on which Ross had consulted. After Wilde's release on 19 May 1897, the two reunited in August at Rouen but stayed together only a few months due to personal differences and various pressures on them.
Naples and Paris
The meeting in Rouen was disapproved of by the friends and families of both men. During the later part of 1897, Wilde and Douglas lived together in Naples, but they separated due to financial pressures and for other personal reasons. Wilde spent the rest of his life mainly in Paris; Douglas returned to Britain in late 1898. The cohabitation period in Naples later became controversial. Wilde claimed Douglas had offered a home, but had no funds or ideas. When Douglas eventually gained funds from his late father's estate, he refused to grant Wilde a permanent allowance, although he gave him occasional sums. Wilde was still bankrupt when he died in 1900. Douglas served as chief mourner, but there was reportedly a graveside altercation between him and Robbie Ross that developed into a feud and foreshadowed the later litigation between the two former lovers of Wilde.[18]
Marriage
After Wilde's death, Douglas made a close friendship with
The marriage grew stormy after Douglas became a
Repudiation of Wilde
In 1911, Douglas embraced Catholicism as Wilde had done earlier. More than a decade after Wilde's death, with the release of suppressed portions of Wilde's De Profundis letter in 1912, Douglas turned against his former friend, whose homosexuality he grew to condemn. He was a defence witness in the libel case brought by Maud Allan against Noel Pemberton Billing in 1918. Billing had accused Allan, who was performing Wilde's play Salome, of being part of a deliberate homosexual conspiracy to undermine the war effort.
Douglas also contributed to Billing's journal Vigilante as part of his campaign against Robbie Ross. He had written a poem calling
Plain English
In 1920 Douglas founded a right-wing, Catholic, and deeply antisemitic weekly magazine called Plain English,[23] in which he collaborated with Harold Sherwood Spencer and initially Thomas William Hodgson Crosland. It claimed to succeed The Academy, to which Douglas had been a contributing editor. Plain English ran until the end of 1922. Douglas later admitted that its policy was "strongly anti-Semitic".[24][25]
From August 1920 (issue No 8) Plain English began publishing a long series of articles called "The Jewish Peril" by Major-General Count Cherep-Spiridovitch, whose title was taken from the fore-title of George Shanks's version of a fraudulent work, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Plain English advertised from issue 20 The Britons' second edition of Shank's version of the Protocols. Douglas challenged the Jewish Guardian, published by the League of British Jews, to take him to court, suggesting they refrained from doing so because they were "well aware of the absolute truth of the allegations which we have made."[26] The magazine suggested in 1921, "We need a Ku Klux Klan in this country,"[27] but a promotion for Ostara magazine was generally not well received by readers.
Other regular targets of the magazine included
From 25 December 1920 it began publishing notorious articles alleging that a "powerful individual in the Admiralty" had alerted the Germans at the Battle of Jutland that the British had broken their code, and that Winston Churchill had falsified a report in return for a large sum of money from Ernest Cassel, who thereby profited. In May 1921 Douglas insinuated that Lord Kitchener had been murdered by Jews.[28]
Douglas ceased to be editor after issue 67 in 1921, after a row with Spencer.[29] He then produced a short-lived, almost identical rival called Plain Speech in 1921 with Herbert Moore Pim. Its first issue contained a letter from a correspondent in Germany praising "Herr Hittler" (so spelt) and "The German White Labour Party".
In 1920 he adhered to the idea of "the Jewish Peril", but noted, "Christian Charity forbids us to join in wholesale and indiscriminate abuse and vilification of an entire race."[30] In 1921 he declared it was not acceptable to "shift responsibility" onto the Jews.[31] In his 1929 Autobiography he wrote, "I feel now that it is ridiculous to make accusations against the Jews, attributing them qualities and methods which are really much more typically English than Jewish," and then indicated the country had only itself to blame if the Jews came in and trampled on it.[32]
The historian Colin Holmes argued that while "Douglas had been to the forefront of anti-semitism in the early 1920s, he was quite unable to come to terms with the vicious racist anti-semitism in Germany" under the Nazis.[33] Politically Douglas described himself as "a strong Conservative of the 'Diehard' variety".[34]
Libel actions
Douglas started his "litigious and libellous career" by gaining an apology and 50 guineas each from the Oxford and Cambridge university magazines
Douglas was plaintiff or defendant in several trials for civil or criminal libel. In 1913 he was charged with libelling his father-in-law. That same year he accused Arthur Ransome of libelling him in his book Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study. He saw the trial as a weapon against his enemy Ross, not understanding that Ross would not be called to give evidence. The court found in Ransome's favour and Douglas was bankrupted by the failed libel suit.[36] Ransome removed the offending passages from the second edition.[37]
The prime case was brought by the Crown on
In 1924, while in prison, Douglas echoed Wilde's composition of De Profundis (From the Depths) during his incarceration and wrote his last major poetic work, In Excelsis (In the Highest) in 17 cantos. Since the prison authorities would not allow Douglas to take the manuscript with him on his release, he had to rewrite the work from memory. Douglas maintained that his health never recovered from his harsh prison ordeal, which included sleeping on a plank bed without a mattress.
Later life
Douglas's feelings towards Wilde began to soften after Douglas's own incarceration in 1924. He wrote in Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up, "Sometimes a sin is also a crime (for example, a murder or theft), but this is not the case with homosexuality, any more than with adultery."[40] In 1933 he gave a talk about poetry to the Catholic Poetry Society on 'The Catholic attitude to certain poets.' Of Wilde, Douglas said: 'Many years [after Wilde's death] and after I had become a Catholic, I reacted violently against him...Converts are very apt to be censorious and to be more Catholic than Catholics...I hope I am now more charitable and broad-minded than I was...After swinging to two extremes in my estimate of Wilde I have now got into what I believe to be the happy mean.'[41] Similarly, in 1935 he wrote to the theatre manager Norman Marshall regarding Marshall's proposed production of a play about the Wilde scandal, closing his letter, 'Devoted as I still am and always will be to the memory of this brilliant and wonderful man and conscious as I am and always shall be about my own failings...Wilde was the author of what I consider to be, apart from Shakespeare, the finest comedy in the English language.'[42]
Throughout the 1930s and up to his death, Douglas kept up correspondence with many people, including Marie Stopes and George Bernard Shaw. Anthony Wynn based his play Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship on the letters between Shaw and Douglas. One of Douglas's final public appearances was a well-received lecture to the Royal Society of Literature on 2 September 1943 on The Principles of Poetry, published in an edition of 1,000 copies. He attacked the poetry of T. S. Eliot; the talk was praised by Arthur Quiller-Couch and Augustus John.[43]
Harold Nicolson described his impression of Douglas after meeting him at a lunch party in 1936:
There is a little trace of his good looks left. His nose has assumed a curious beaklike shape, his mouth has twisted into shapes of nervous irritability, and his eyes, although still blue, are yellow and bloodshot. He makes nervous and twitching movements with freckled and claw-like hands. He stoops slightly and drags a leg. Yet behind this appearance of a little, cross, old gentleman flits the shape of a young man of the 'nineties, with little pathetic sunshine-flashes of the 1893 boyishness and gaiety. I had fully expected the self-pity, suspicion and implied irritability, but I had not foreseen that there would be any remnant of merriment and boyishness. Obviously the great tragedy of his life has scarred him deeply. He talked very frankly about his marriage and about his son, who is in a home at Northampton.[44]
In the book, Secret Historian, Samuel Steward (a professor, poet, and novelist) wrote in his diary that he met Lord Douglas when Douglas was 67; Steward was 27. Lord Douglas professed that he was beyond "sins of the flesh," yet ends up in bed with Steward. Douglas proclaims that Wilde and he did little more than kiss and find other men for each other.[45]
Douglas's only child, Raymond, was diagnosed in 1927, at the age of 24, with
Death
Douglas died of
The elderly Douglas, living a reduced life in Hove in the 1940s, appears in the diaries of Henry Channon and in the first autobiography of Donald Sinden, whose son Marc Sinden claimed his father was one of only two people at the funeral.[48][49] In fact the funeral report in The Times named some 20 mourners, including Sinden, with "other friends".[50] He died at the home of Edward and Sheila Colman, who were the main beneficiaries in his will, inheriting the copyright to his work.[51]
Writings
Douglas published several volumes of poetry and two books about his relationship with Wilde, Oscar Wilde and Myself (1914, largely ghost-written by T. W. H. Crosland, assistant editor of the literary journal The Academy and later repudiated by Douglas) and Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up (1940). He also wrote two memoirs: The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas (1929) and Without Apology (1938).
Douglas edited The Academy from 1907 to 1910, during which time he had an affair with the artist
Of the six biographies of Douglas, the earlier ones by Braybrooke and Freeman were forbidden to quote from his copyright work, while De Profundis was unpublished. Later biographies were by Rupert Croft-Cooke, H. Montgomery Hyde (who also wrote about Wilde), Douglas Murray (who called Braybrooke's biography "a rehash and exaggeration of Douglas's book" [his autobiography]). The most recent is Alfred Douglas: A Poet's Life and His Finest Work by Caspar Wintermans in 2007.
In 1999, The University of Oxford established the Lord Alfred Douglas Memorial Prize for "...the best sonnet or other poem written in English and in strict rhyming metre."[52] The award was established by Douglas's friend Sheila Coleman, who, on her death, left a legacy of $36,000 to fund the award.[53]
Poetry
- Poems (1896)
- Tails with a Twist "by a Belgian Hare" (1898)
- The City of the Soul (1899).
- The Duke of Berwick (1899)
- The Placid Pug (1906)
- The Pongo Papers and the Duke of Berwick (1907)
- Sonnets (1909)
- The Collected Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas (1919)
- In Excelsis (1924)
- The Complete Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas (1928)
- Sonnets (1935)
- Lyrics (1935)
- The Sonnets of Lord Alfred Douglas (1943)
Non-fiction
- Oscar Wilde and Myself (1914) (ghost-written by T. W. H. Crosland[54])
- Foreword to New Preface to the 'Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde' by Frank Harris (1925)
- Introduction to Songs of Cell by Horatio Bottomley (1928)
- The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas (1929; 2nd ed. 1931)
- My Friendship with Oscar Wilde (1932; retitled American version of his memoir)
- The True History of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1933)
- Introduction to The Pantomime Man by Richard Middleton (1933)
- Preface to Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris, and Oscar Wilde by Robert Harborough Sherard (1937)
- Without Apology (1938)
- Preface to Oscar Wilde: A Play by Leslie Stokes and Sewell Stokes (1938)
- Introduction to Brighton Aquatints by John Piper (1939)
- Ireland and the War Against Hitler (1940)
- Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up (1940)
- Introduction to Oscar Wilde and the Yellow Nineties by Frances Winwar (1941)
- The Principles of Poetry (1943)
- Preface to Wartime Harvest by Marie Carmichael Stopes (1944)
On film
In the films Oscar Wilde and The Trials of Oscar Wilde, both released in 1960, Douglas was portrayed by John Neville and John Fraser respectively. In the 1997 British film Wilde, Douglas was portrayed by Jude Law. In the 2018 film The Happy Prince, he was portrayed by Colin Morgan.
In the BBC drama Oscar (1985) he was portrayed by Robin Lermitte (credited as Robin McCallum); Michael Gambon played Wilde.
Notes
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32869. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "The Queensberry Divorce Case", The Times, 24 January 1887, p. 4.
- ISBN 978-1299419407.
- ^ Linda Stratmann, The Marquess of Queensberry: Wilde's Nemesis, Yale University Press 2013 p. 25
- ^ Neil McKenna, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, Random House 2011 p. 427.
- ^ a b c Lady Florence Dixie Archived 20 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine at Spartacus-Educational.com (accessed 26 February 2019)
- ^ a b Douglas, Murray, Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas, Chapter One online at nytimes.com (accessed 8 March 2008).
- ^ G. E. Cokayne et al., eds., The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new edition, 13 volumes in 14 (1910–1959; new edition, 2000), volume X, page 694.
- ^ Dixie, Lady Florence, poet, novelist, writer; explorer and a keen champion of Woman's Rights in Who Was Who online at 7345683[permanent dead link] at xreferplus.com (subscription required), accessed 11 March 2008.
- ^ Heilmann, Ann, Wilde's New Women: the New Woman on Wilde in Uwe Böker, Richard Corballis, Julie A. Hibbard, The Importance of Reinventing Oscar: Versions of Wilde During the Last 100 Years (Rodopi, 2002) pp. 135–147, in particular p. 139.
- ^ H. Montgomery Hyde, The Love That Dared not Speak its Name; p. 144
- ^ Ellmann (1988:98)
- hdl:10023/26159.
- ^ a b c Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellman, published in 1987.
- ^ Antony Edmunds, Oscar Wilde's Scandalous Summer; p. 26 [1] Archived 28 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Ellmann (1988:101)
- ^ Maureen Borland, Wilde's Devoted Friend: A Life of Robert Ross, 1869–1918 (Lennard Publishing, 1990) p. 206 at books.google.com, accessed 22 January 2009.
- ^ World Review. E. Hulton. 1970.
- S2CID 191468238.
- ISBN 978-1848933866.
- ^ Adams, Jad (2018). "Olive Custance: A Poet Crossing Boundaries". English Literature in Transition. 61 (1): 35–65.
- ^ Philip Hoare. (1999). Oscar Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century. Arcade Publishing, p. 110.
- ISBN 978-1138853485.
- ^ The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas (1929) p. 302
- ^ Brown, William Sorley The Life and Genius of T.W.H. Crosland (1928), p. 394.
- ^ The "Jewish Guardian" Again, Plain English No 21, 27 November 1920
- ^ Lies, Plain English No 66, 8 October 1921
- ISBN 978-0754669654.
- ^ Toczek, p. 34,
- ^ Christian Charity and the Jews, Plain English No. 4, 31 July 1920, p. 78.
- ^ "The Jews, 'The Britons' and the Morning Post", Plain Speech No. 10, 24 December 1921, p. 149.
- ^ The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas (1929) pp. 303–304.
- ^ Colin Holmes, Anti-Semitism in British Society, 1876–1939 Routledge (1979) p. 218.
- ^ The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas (1929) p. 220.
- ^ (Murray p. 152.)
- ^ The Edinburgh Gazette Publication date:17 January 1913 Issue: 12530, Page 77.
- ^ Ransome, Arthur, Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study, 2nd ed., Methuen, 1913.
- ^ accessed 10/2/2017.
- ^ accessed 10/2/2017.
- ^ (Murray pp 309–310)
- ^ Murray, Douglas (2020). Bosie: The Tragic Life of Lord Alfred Douglas (2nd ed.). Sceptre. p. 266.
- ^ Ibid. p. 281.
- ^ Murray pp. 318–319.
- ^ Harold Nicolson (1966). Harold Nicolson Diaries & Letters 1930–39. Collins. p. 261.
- ^ Justin Spring (2010). Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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(help) - ^ "Timeline to the Life of Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas" anthonywynn.com Retrieved 24 August 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-85033-503-3.
- ^ Libby Purvis interviews Freddie Fox. The Times, 17 January 2013, p. 8.
- ^ "Sir Donald Sinden: Legendary actor dies aged 90". BBC News. 12 September 2014. Retrieved 12 September 2014.
- ^ "Funeral: Lord Alfred Douglas", The Times, 24 March 1945, p. 7.
- ^ A. N. Wilson in The Telegraph 26 November 2001
- ^ "Prizes and Studentships".
- ^ "Sheila Colman, 82; Tended Wilde's Lover". Los Angeles Times. 25 November 2001.
- ISBN 978-0-7867-0781-2.
References
- Patrick Braybrooke, Lord Alfred Douglas: His Life and Work (1931)
- Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde. New York: Vintage Books (1988) ISBN 978-0-394-75984-5
- William Freeman, Lord Alfred Douglas: Spoilt Child of Genius (1948)
- Marquess of Queensberry, [Francis Douglas] and Percy Colson. Oscar Wilde and the Black Douglas (1949)
- Rupert Croft-Cooke, Bosie: Lord Alfred Douglas, His Friends and Enemies (1963)
- Brian Roberts, The Mad Bad Line: The Family of Lord Alfred Douglas (1981)
- Mary Hyde, ed., Bernard Shaw and Alfred Douglas: A Correspondence (1982)
- ISBN 0-413-50790-4
- Douglas Murray, Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas (2000) ISBN 0-340-76771-5
- Trevor Fisher, Oscar and Bosie: A Fatal Passion (2002) ISBN 0-7509-2459-4
- Michael Matthew Kaylor, Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde (2006), a 500-page scholarly volume that considers the Victorian writers of Uranian poetryand prose, such as Douglas
- Timothy d'Arch Smith, Love in Earnest. Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English 'Uranian' Poets from 1889 to 1930. (1970) ISBN 0-7100-6730-5
- ISBN 978-0-7206-1270-7
- Molly Whittington-Egan, "Such White Lilies: Frank Miles & Oscar Wilde" Rivendale Press, January 2008
External links
- Unofficial website of Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas
- Works by Lord Alfred Douglas at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Lord Alfred Douglas at Internet Archive
- Works by Lord Alfred Douglas at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- "Archival material relating to Lord Alfred Douglas". UK National Archives.
- Numerous archival resources relating to Lord Alfred Douglas are listed in ArchiveGrid
- [2] by Lord Alfred Douglas (with commentary by VED from Victoria Institutions)
- Finding aid to Alfred Bruce Douglas papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.