Rediscovering Olive Custance: The Inn of Dreams
A New Critical Edition Olive Custance is one of those poets who lingers in the margins of literary history, often referenced in relation to her husband, Lord Alfred Douglas, or as a minor figure in the fin de siècle Decadent movement. Yet, to see her only through these lenses is to miss the brilliance of her poetry—poetry that shimmers with longing, beauty, and the search for meaning. On the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of her death, I reissued The Inn of Dreams in 2015 as a modest critical edition. This was both a tribute and an effort to restore her voice to the conversation on Victorian and Edwardian poetry. Now, several years later, the book remains an important resource for those interested in her work and in the rich literary culture of the 1890s and early 20th century. Why The Inn of Dreams? Unlike previous selections of Custance’s work, this edition does not impose an external perspective on her poetry. The selection is her own—The Inn of Dreams represents the cu...