£l00 DAMAGES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 488, 18 October 1928, Page 1

£loo DAMAGES

Judgment for Lord Alfred Douglas BOOK ON WILDE Times Cable. Reed. 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Wednesday. Mr. Justice Horridge awarded Lord Alfred Douglas £IOO damages against Harrods, Ltd., for a libel contained in Frank Harris’s book, ‘‘Oscar Wilde: His Life and- Confessions,” a copy of which Harrods sold to the plaintiff’s agent. In evidence, Lord Alfred said he was happily married, and supplemented his private income by authorship. The book frequently referred to the plaintiff, and wrongly described Wilde’s downfall, asserting that Douglas had left hinl in misery and starvation in Paris. Lord Alfred Douglas met Harris at Cannes, after which they collaborated on a new preface, in which Harris withdrew the allegations made. Harrods had three copies of the preface when they sold the book, of which they had onjy one copy which was originally purchased at £l. It help up Douglas to odium and contempt, whereas he had generously befriended Wilde. The jury suggested the destruction of the remaining copies of the book, which was produced in court.

“Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions,” was published by Frank Harris personally in 1920. It is Wilde's finest biography, but unfortunately in it unwholesome and apparently unwarranted allegations were made against Lord Alfred Douglas. Soon after the book was published Douglas threatened to sue Harris for libel, and have the book suppressed, but he agreed not to resort to legal remedy if the true position was stated in a supplementary preface to be sold with the volumes. At the time. Lord Alfred Douglas announced that he would proceed against all persons sellins the biography without the preface, but the action just decided is the first he brought.

Frank Harris, now in his 73rd year, is an accomplished writer of fiction and biographer, but since the war he has been an exile from England. Alfred Douglas, since the death of Wilde, has been engaged in several libel actions, and for one brought against himself he suffered imprisonment. He was a friend of Wilde, and his father, the Marquis of Queensbury, resenting the friendship, made the attack on Wilde which resulted in Wilde's tragic disgrace. Lord Alfred Douglas is among the greatest of contemporary poets.