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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Bruce Lockhart
Bruce Lockhart. British Consulate. Moscow.
1 September [1913]
Dear Lockhart,
I am sending you by this mail a selection of masterpieces as I promised. You will find them sufficiently varied. If you feel friendly disposed you might take great pains to read Mortaldello five times. I am convinced that it would do very well for Russia and if you can understand Lycapoden [?] I shall be extremely grateful.
I am so sorry at missing that last lunch. I was going to tell you a story which very few people know. That is the inner history of the catastrophe that overtook the gentleman [Oscar Wilde] in whom Russia is so interested. The story is called "Danger of Bunburying". Bunbury is a portmanteau word Banbury and Sunbury. The author in question hastily getting late into the train at Banbury found the carriage already occupied by a schoolboy who was returning from a public school not very far away. They got into conversation and subsequently met by appointment at Sunbury. Hence the word Bunbury and its meaning. For our author began a series of frequent and unexplained absences. The talented author of so many sonnets, the same who is now the condemnation of purity in English morals, found these absences suspicious and jumped as women will to a correct conclusion although without definite evidence. There was a tremendous row, and in the event he determined to ruin his friend. You have perhaps heard Ross's conviction that a catastrophe was deliberately brought about by [Lord] A. D. [Alfred Douglas]. I don't think even Ross knows why. In fact I think there are only two people living who know. There have been reasons for not telling the story before, but it is a very good one and quite true.
I shall, probably know in a fortnight whether I am likely to get to Moscow in January. I most earnestly desire the same. Please write and tell me what you think of my books and my anecdote.
Yours very truly.
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