The money inherited from his father, however, had been squandered almost immediately and with it the hopes of being able to start afresh had evaporated. Douglas, born in 1870, and himself a worthy poet, had just escaped the stormy relationship that had led Oscar Wilde to his grave and was eager to rebuild his life. In June 1901, when “Wild Olive” – as Custance was wont to sign herself – met Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas for the first time, it was love at first sight for both of them.
SENTE BELLA SAN DIEGO FULL
The boy, twenty-five at the time, later abandoned the vice-ridden bohemian undergrowth to become a Catholic priest, and maintained a long correspondence with Olive, full of affection and very useful literary advice. Nor are religious compositions lacking, the number of which gradually increased over the years, especially after her conversion to the Church of Rome.īefore meeting her future husband, Olive Custance’s love was all for John Gray, a young and attractive poet, friend of Oscar Wilde, whom a consolidated tradition indicates as the model of the almost homonymous protagonist of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Her volumes of poems – Opals (1897), Rainbows (1902), The Blue Bird (1905) and The Inn of Dreams (1911) – are a journey into the inexhaustible mystery of the human being described according to the canons of Symbolism. To the countryside around Norwich, where her family lived, she much preferred the bustle of London, full of new artistic ferments that came from the continent like a breath of fresh air. Aubrey Beardsley paid homage to her with an Ex libris designed by him, and writer Natalie Barney, a friend of hers, amply praised the evocative beauty of her poetry.īorn on 7 February 1874 and daughter of an army colonel, Olive Custance began writing her first verses when she was still young, soon earning the admiration of the cultural circles of the capital. She was one of the authors linked to John Lane’s The Bodley Head publishing house and she wrote contributions for such popular magazines as “The Yellow Book” and “The Savoy”.
Yet Custance, who lived in the shadow of Lord Alfred Douglas, was one of the best poetesses of her time, comparable in talent to Dollie Radford and Alice Meynell. Even the more substantial writings about her can be counted on the fingers of one hand: in addition to the short monograph Olive Custance: Her Life and Work (1975) by Father Brocard Sewell – also editor of an anthology entitled The Selected Poems of Olive Custance (1995) – the most important are the preface to the 2015 reissue of The Inn of Dreams, by Edwin James King, and the biographical article by Jad Adams entitled Olive Custance: A Poet Crossing Boundaries (2018).
Even today her name remains confined in the footnotes of English “fin de siècle” literature, only arousing the interest of collectors of late Victorian volumes. Four volumes of poetry and a famous husband were not enough to guarantee Olive Custance the recognition she deserved.
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