Lord Alfred Douglas

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, some light spotting, envelope with small tears and chips

"...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).