Bernard Shaw and Alfred Douglas, a correspondence

by George Bernard Shaw

Many years after the downfall of Oscar Wilde, Alfred Douglas, hoping to boost sales of his autobiography, asked Bernard Shaw to write the preface. An unlikely but enduring friendship developed from this first letter, and the entire collection is presented in this book. The subjects covered by the letters include comments on Wilde and his circle, Shakespeare and Ibsen, Einstein, Freud and Marx, Eliot and Auden, Chamberlain, Hitler and others.

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

George Bernard Shaw stands as one of the most prolific and influential intellectuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a man whose literary output was matched only by his fervent commitment to social reform. Rising from a modest background in Dublin to become a global icon of letters, Shaw redefined the purpose of the stage, transforming it from a place of mere entertainment into a forum for rigorous intellectual debate and moral inquiry. His unique "Shavian" style—characterized by sharp-witted dialogue, paradoxical reasoning, and a relentless assault on Victorian hypocrisy—ensured that his voice resonated far beyond the footlights. As a playwright, critic, and philosopher, he remains a singular figure in history, being one of only two individuals to have been honored with both a Nobel Prize in Literature and an Academy Award. This rare crossover of high-art recognition and mainstream cinematic success speaks to his versatility and the enduring relevance of his narratives. His dramatic work, which includes over sixty plays, often tackled the most pressing issues of his day, from the rigid structures of the British class system to the complexities of gender roles and the ethical dilemmas of capitalism. In masterpieces like Pygmalion, he used the science of phonetics to demonstrate the artificiality of class distinctions, a theme that would later reach millions through the musical adaptation My Fair Lady. In Man and Superman, he delved into the philosophical concepts of the "Life Force" and the evolution of the human spirit, while Major Barbara forced audiences to confront the uncomfortable relationship between religious idealism and the industrial military complex. Beyond his theatrical achievements, Shaw was a foundational force in political thought, serving as a leading light of the Fabian Society. His advocacy for gradual socialist reform, rather than violent revolution, helped shape the trajectory of modern British politics and social welfare. He was instrumental in the creation of the London School of Economics, an institution that continues to influence global policy and economic theory. Shaw was also a formidable critic, whose reviews of music and drama set new standards for the profession, characterized by an uncompromising honesty and a deep knowledge of the arts. His personal lifestyle was as distinctive as his writing; a committed vegetarian, teetotaler, and non-smoker, he lived with a disciplined focus that allowed him to remain productive well into his ninth decade. He was a man of contradictions, often engaging in provocative public discourse that challenged the status quo, even when his views sparked intense controversy. His fascination with the "Superman" archetype and his occasional support for authoritarian figures reflected a complex, often elitist worldview that sought the betterment of humanity through radical intellectual evolution. Despite these complexities, his core mission was always rooted in a profound humanitarianism and a desire to expose the delusions that prevented society from progressing. He believed that the power of the written word could strip away the masks of respectability that hid social injustice, and his plays continue to be staged worldwide because the human foibles he satirized remain as prevalent today as they were during his lifetime. By blending humor with gravity and intellect with accessibility, Shaw created a body of work that serves as both a mirror and a compass for modern civilization. His legacy is not just in the scripts he left behind, but in the very way we think about the intersection of art, politics, and the individual’s responsibility to the collective good. He remains the quintessential public intellectual, a man who never feared to speak his mind or to demand that the world become a more rational and equitable place.

Reviews

[Abi_88 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This correspondence revealed a lot about each man that I didn't see in biographies related to wilde. I finished the book in one sitting that's how funny, entertaining, and sad the whole thing was. I find myself feeling sympathetic for bosie and his everlasting boyish attitude. In his writing, you can tell that he looks up to father figures. Perhaps because his own father treated him so badly. I can't help but to think that his relationship with wilde had something to do with that. I found myself almost in tears at the end of the book, that's how close I felt to each man. Every wilde and bosie enthusiast should buy a copy of this book.

[Laura Lee]

I enjoyed this correspondence quite a bit more than I'd expected to. Lord Alfred Douglas is quite aptly described by Shaw as one whose "age varies from five to fifty without a word of warning" (although it tends to hover more towards the lower end of the scale). He has temper tantrums, he flatters, whines, and makes emotional appeals. Shaw scolds him like a surrogate father. They agree on nearly nothing, and spar with affection. Douglas comes across as someone who has always survived on the largesse of people he could win over with looks and charm. Shaw teases Douglas about his personality flaws, litigiousness and narcisism. For his part, Shaw seems strangely over confident that he knows Oscar Wilde's biography and motivations better than Douglas does. On that score, Douglas is obsessed with the public's perception of his role in Wilde's life and the court scandal and he threatens to sue anyone and everyone who does not paint him in a favorable light. Both men are, of course, literate and witty. I don't know why, but I found the whole thing rather delightful.

[Rosie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright… I concede. Alfred Douglas has won me over. I recant (almost) everything negative I’ve said about him. Reading this book has completely softened my attitude towards him, and I can see that what I’ve read in the past about him has been unreliable and often downright deceitful. I can also see why Wilde liked him so much; besides his beauty (the pictures of him in his twenties make one gape), he is incredibly charming in his letters; you can’t help but be fond of him and feel like indulging his whims. Bernard Shaw says several times that he has an “infantile complex” and that, writing to him, you can’t be sure whether you’ll get the version of him that’s 5 or 40. I agree. He’s shockingly childish and whiny at times, and it slips your mind that he’s 60-plus years of age. Though, that’s in terms of emotional maturity, as his writing never degrades to that of a child—obviously.

This book contains, probably the single most entertaining correspondence I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It is never boring, and the contrasting personalities of Shaw and Douglas bounce off each other to produce the most energetic and lively effect. Another reviewer made a similar comparison, and I can’t help but agree with them: It’s sort of like reading the interactions between an indulgent old grandpa, oftentimes chastising, and his sulky and childish but precocious grandson. They both recognized it, and Douglas said that he didn’t mind it, but only because the one treating him this way was Shaw.

I recommend this to everyone with no reserve.

Besides its high entertainment value, I also learned a lot of valuable information which corrects the false information that was previously in place, and I’ve placed Douglas’ autobiography on my “to-read” list. Unfortunately, his book Without Apology I can’t find anywhere within this country (the closest is apparently in a library in France), and buying it costs hundreds of dollars, so I’ll have to put reading that one on the backburner for now.

But back to Douglas: Reading his ridiculous statements makes one laugh. You can’t take them seriously, and they don’t offend you, for some reason, even when coming out of another’s mouth they would. (Like him saying matter-of-factly that he “completely agrees with Hitler, of course”! This was before WWII, though, so keep that in mind.) It’s quite interesting the effect he has. And the way Bernard Shaw reacts to him is priceless. He calls him a lot of hilarious names when they are squabbling—grasshopper, at one point. Also, “squalling baby”. I’ve marked a lot of sections to quote and will include in this review the most entertaining ones, or all that fit.

Shaw and Douglas address each other as St Christopher (Shaw) and Childe Alfred (Douglas) in this. It’s very cute, as Douglas was very enthusiastic about the nicknames, and I wasn’t sure Shaw was going to put up with it, but when he for the first time used Childe Alfred in a letter, Douglas got very excited and said, “Your letter is epoch-making for me because you actually for the first time address me as ‘dear Childe Alfred’. You have never done this before. You bestowed the name on me but up till now you have never used it. This, no doubt, was because all your last communications have been on cards, and not letters. In any case I am delighted to be confirmed as ‘Childe Alfred’ though I hope it won’t be necessary for me to come to any more dark towers just now, as I’ve really been having a very bad time and have only just (not quite) recorded from an attack of influenza.” (60) Childe is a reference to Shakespeare’s King Lear, Act III, scene 4, as in “Child Rowland to the dark tower came”, with Child spelled Childe because “It was Byron who re-established Childe”, according to Shaw.

Oh, Gosh, one other thing that’s really funny and exemplifies Douglas’ personality is that Douglas sent a picture of Shaw he had to Shaw to sign it for him, received it, and then later, his wife, Olive, received a photo of Shaw with Shaw’s signature on it (from Shaw), but it also had a little address on it, like “To my dear Olive”, or something. Douglas was so jealous that he complained about it extensively in a letter to Shaw. This was because his photo of Shaw had Shaw’s signature on it alone, with no dedication. He then sent Shaw four different photos of Shaw which he wanted signed in the same manner as Olive’s, Shaw obliged this request of his, and then Douglas said he was very happy. So childish! He also eventually framed the four photos. Isn’t that funny? Reminds me of an idol shrine. There’s a picture of them included in this book.

In any case, I’m very happy I read this. It’s the best book I’ve read this month, and one of the best I’ve read this year, I think. And now I’m interested in reading some of Bernard Shaw’s other correspondences, as he writes in an entertaining way. He’s very honest about his thoughts, in a crotchety sort of way. Also, as seen in the couple of photographs of letters provided in this book, he really has pretty penmanship! This lovely, loopy cursive that is highly readable, unlike Douglas’ scrawl.

In any case, I will end here. I have no criticisms to make, so this needn’t be an extra long review. Do read this book!

Quotations:

“In this trial, incriminating letters from earlier Wilde lawsuits were re-read, and for the first time hitherto-unpublished portions of De Profundis were made public in court, the manuscript having been subpoenaed from the British Museum. Later the passages were freely quoted in the press, fixing Douglas in the public mind as Wilde’s evil genius and destroyer. Douglas stated under oath that he had not received the De Profundis letter in August 1897 as claimed, nor at any time thereafter, and that until a copy had been produced for him shortly before the trial, he had not known the letter was addressed to him.” (xxxiv)

“Changes in taste during the past twenty years had much to do with the lack of appreciation for Douglas’s poetry. Readers had turned away from classical rules and meticulous handling of metre and rhyme to freer forms. Douglas’s strength lay in polished lyrics and sonnets, and in these he was a master. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, compiler of The Oxford Book of English Verse, believed that Douglas wrote the finest sonnets of his time, sonnets that few other English poets had ever equalled. Frank Harris, hostile to Douglas as a man, gave him extravagant praise as a sonneteer, comparing him with Shakespeare. And Shaw compared him with Shelley.” (xxxvii)

“Prison had a therapeutic effect on Douglas. He regretted his litigiousness, regretted the wrong he had done Churchill and changed his attitude towards Wilde. He rid himself of the bitterness, anger and sense of betrayal he had felt when the suppressed parts of De Profundis were made public. After his release from prison in May 1924 his talk and his writing about Wilde were always without rancour. They were filled again with understanding and deep affection. He was even eager to draw attention to similarities in their experience. He was not ashamed of being a bankrupt and was proud to have been in prison. Once Oscar had been sent to prison, he wrote in his preface to a friend’s book, this ‘became the obvious goal for any self-respecting English poet, and I never rested till I got there.’” (xl)

“Douglas’s Autobiography was a lively and entertaining book, but hardly a conventional life story. It consisted mainly of his reminiscences about Wilde, told in the softened words of new understanding. Douglas no longer tried to ward off the shadow of Wilde; he was proud to share Oscar’s fame.” (xli)

“Dear Mr Bernard Shaw, Many thanks for sending me Harris’s book. I read it right through yesterday. I know next to nothing of your life and I really wanted to find out something about it. Harris’s book gave me very little enlightenment. He has all the faults that a biographer could possibly have. As you point out, he is reckless in his statements and does not verify his facts. He jumps to all sorts of conclusions which are quite unjustified (or at any rate liable to be quite unjustified) and he is all the time blowing his own trumpet and posing as a righteous large-hearted man. Whereas he was a liar, a thief (both literary and otherwise) and an unscrupulous blackguard.” (13-4)

“Robert Harborough Sherard (1861-1943), a great-grandson of Wordsworth, had met Wilde in Paris in 1883. Sherard, though strongly opposed to homosexuality, was a devoted friend and had already written three books about Wilde. The most recent, Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris and Oscar Wilde, was a defence against Harris’s biography, which Sherard claimed was a malicious book, filled with plagiarisms, fictions and lies. He disproved many of Harris’s best stories by researched facts. The preface to Sherard’s book was by Douglas.” (22, in footnote)

“I still stick to my old opinion that Harris’s portrait of Oscar is by far the most vivid we have. Ransome’s is far more respectable and judicial; and Sherard’s little account of the spaniel-like attachment that made him at last unbearable is pitiful and sincere; but neither of them can push the trenchant Frank off the stage; his power of assertion and readability will carry the day with posterity if posterity ever troubles itself about any of us. It is important to get Harris right: he is unsuppressable.” (24) —Bernard Shaw

“Constable’s sent me the proof of your brilliant preface in which you said such kind things about me. I can’t agree that Harris’s picture of Wilde is as good as you think it, but that really doesn’t matter, as your preface is the main point of the new publication. I think Harris makes Oscar out much too ‘soft’ and weak. He really wasn’t like that. He had a ‘ferocious will’ about many things. As for Harris himself, I don’t think even you will succeed in whitewashing him, though I have come to think lately that a great part of his apparent villainies were due to sheer stupidity. You are very light on his sexual enormities. They were enormities. (I know of things he did which are perfectly horrible.) His character and his outlook on life and his judgement of men and women were of course affected all the time by this, just as you say is the case with a man who is never quite sober, which might, as you point out, be truthfully said about both Harris and Oscar. You probably, in fact certainly, don’t know as much as I do about Harris’s excesses. He wasn’t homosexual, simply because it was not in his nature, but he was all the same a sort of minotaur and devoured female children in a wholesale way. Not that I think one ought to put such things into a biography, but I at least can never forget them.
When I think of Harris and all his nauseating ‘Jesus’ stuff it really makes me sick to read.” (58-9) —Alfred Douglas

“Oscar Wilde was published on 18 July (price ten shillings), without the sub-title ‘His Life and Confessions’, Shaw had written on the proof, ‘I think this Newgate Calendar sub-title should be dropped. It was one of Frank’s less reputable tricks’. The book was now in one volume and the lengthy section of De Profundis was deleted. There was no Appendix. Illustrations had been vetoed and there was still no index.” (65, footnotes)

“Sherard disproved Harris’s claim that he had had a yacht waiting at Erith for Wilde’s escape to France; Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris and Oscar Wilde, pp: 189-203.” (79, footnotes)

“P.S. I am trying to find a photograph of myself taken about four or five years ago. It’s the latest, and doesn’t look too awful. But unfortunately the only known copy still in existence I gave to our old cook, Mrs White, when she left us from my mother’s house. However, I think I can borrow it from her (she has retired from ‘service’ but lives in Hove) and have a copy made. It originally cost a shilling in the Western Road here! You have already got one of me in my youth and also the one in Lyrics. I wish I still looked like that or, better still, that I had died thirty years ago.” (83) —Alfred Douglas

“I see you are now being accused of being on the side of the dictators [his play, Geneva]. I am simply delighted at this. Of course in the long run you would be bound to see that ‘Democracy’ is a ludicrous fraud. I have known it and said it all my life. You will certainly end up in the Catholic church. Your CHILDE ALFRED” (86)

“Viereck, German-born American, poet and novelist, a pro-German propagandist during the Great War, who became the leading exponent of Hitler in America. ‘My three ideals’, he once wrote, ‘were Christ, Napoleon and Oscar Wilde’.” (87, footnotes) …What an interesting combination.

“Do let me know how you are. What do you think about Hitler et cet.? I am entirely on his side, but in any case I feel perfectly certain that there will not be any war or anything like it. If I am wrong I am prepared to eat my hat. Your (depressed) CHILDE ALFRED” (94, in 1938)

“Dear St Christopher, I forgot to tell you in my letter yesterday that Olive has given up her flat in Brighton and has moved to London. So I am left alone here, which is very depressing and conducive to low-spirited noises.” (94) He uses that term, ‘low-spirited noises’, very often.

“You must explain that Harris and Sherard were hampered by the fact that in their time it was generally believed that homosexuality involved the most horrible depravity of character, and was unnatural and unmentionable. Since then the work done in England by Havelock Ellis and Edward Carpenter and abroad by Freud and the psychoanalysts has completely changed all that. Not only have sexual subjects become mentionable and discussable (compare Thackeray’s novels with D.H. Lawrence’s) but it is now known that a reversal of the sex instinct occurs naturally, and that the victim of it is greatly to be pitied and may be a person of the noblest character. Wilde’s life must therefore be taken out of the old atmosphere in which Harris and Sherard wrote, and retold with a healthy objectivity which was impossible before the war.
In doing this you must clear your mind of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Catholic categories of sin-as-distinguished-from-crime and all the rest of it. You will have to explain that Wilde was prosecuted not for sodomy but for offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act for the protection of boys, as to which he was guilty. It is not necessary to peter the reader with assurances that you are bound as a Catholic to proclaim Pickwickian opinions and values that are now obsolete, irrelevant and ridiculous.” (120) Shaw giving Douglas advice on his book, Oscar Wilde, a Summing-Up, which Douglas had sent him the manuscript of. Douglas ignored this advice for the most part.

“I wish I could find any extremity of vituperation that would induce you to attend to what I write. For instance, you make the usual low-spirited noises about having to leave out your remarks on homosexuality. . . . ” (126) —Bernard Shaw. Another mention of the low-spirited noises. It makes me laugh.

“It [De Profundis] is also in the same way belittling to you, though not exactly libellous. Who on earth cares now whether you visited him when he [Wilde] had influenza, or which of you paid for the grapes—or whatever his petty injuries were? Pitiful, all that!” (127) —Shaw. Hahaha! I never thought about it like this. True, it seems petty.

“Childe, Childe, Politically you have the brains of a grasshopper; and you have far too much courage. If the Douglases had had less courage and more common sense they would now be the royal house of Scotland.” (135) Pfffffft.

Douglas was commissioned to write a sonnet about Churchill, which he did, and which Churchill ended up liking very much. This was a bit of a delicate situation, because Churchill was kind of responsible for putting him in prison. “Dear Childe, You have certainly performed an extraordinary feat. I tried to imagine how you could possibly make Churchill the addressee of a sonnet. Ridiculous rhymes jingled in my head.
Churchill: both blessed Jude and Christian God,
Bid me forgive your putting me in Quod
And
Just one last thing I hardly like to mention
But it must out. Say: what about that pension?
[Douglas was trying to petition for a pension from the government for the work he’d done for “arts and letters” or something. He had been refused at least once by this point, I think, as he got 400 pounds a year from his wife Olive, which was considered quite a lot.]
However, you seem to have solved the problem quite easily; and it was really a delicate one.” (145) —Shaw

“Dear Childe Alfred. The preface is all right. It has your extraordinary quality of being what Shakespeare called unpolicied. Every sentence I write is policed to the last comma; but what you write is the cry of a livigins oil, with the result that people wonder what is behind my writing and must sometimes doubt—as I do myself occasionally—whether there is anything behind it. They know you and love or hate you as the case may be; but they cannot make me out clearly enough for that. I am an invented, histrionic figure, mostly quite impossible; but you are a human being for them. We both get round them by our literary power, reinforced in your case by attractive good looks.” (148)

“The truth is that Harris had the supreme virtue of knowing good literary work from bad and preferring the good. For that I forgave him all his sins, and have always defended him as far as he could be defended. He was hated because he frightened people with his voice and his trenchant articulation, acquired chiefly to recite Poe’s ‘Raven’ effectively, but also to pass as a gentleman and scholar in London. I was a public speaker, able to articulate his head off; and I was not afraid of him. And I found out the truth of Mrs. Frankau’s remonstrance with me for bullying him: that outside literature he was a sensitive child who understood London society as a bush-ranger would understand it. He was genuinely puzzled at my calling him a buccaneer; for he thought he resembled Jesus Christ, and died broken-hearted when he proposed to write a book on him, and the publishers said, ‘No: we want a book on Shaw’.” (149-51; 150 has a photograph on it) —Shaw

[Ross Dorianycc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non avevo mai riempito il vuoto della personalità di Lord Douglas nei suoi ultimi anni di vita, ma finalmente ho potuto osservare non solo la sua evoluzione ma anche come viene percepito da un terzo (che non sia Wilde). Inutile dire che il suo lato infantile lo ha dominato fino alla fine e che la sua spasmodica ricerca di una figura quasi paterna lo ha portato ad affezionarsi spesso ad altri uomini, nonché allo stesso Shaw che invece sembra spesso accusatorio e distante. Bernard Shaw è pungente, è a tratti crudele con lui col suo umorismo, non è mai d'accordo con Douglas eppure in fondo sviluppa una specie di legame, gli tiene corda - lui che a quanto pare era molto affezionato a sua moglie Olive. Questo scambio non ha fatto altro che confermare le mie teorie: Lord Alfred è psicologicamente instabile - lo stresso Shaw conferma che Bosie passi dall'avere cinque anni ai cinquanta in pochi secondi (lui e la sua bramosia di essere lodato, gratificato, ammirato e forse anche accudito) e quindi passa dall'essere docile ad avere la lingua affilata. Alla fine mi sono divertita e schiarita le idee.