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 culmination of her literary career as she saw it. This was not merely a rehash of earlier work, as some critics have suggested, but a careful sifting, reflecting her poetic and personal evolution. Here, we see a journey from youthful passion to mature reflection, from sensual delight to spiritual questioning.

This movement—from darkness to light, from youthful sensuality to the tempered realism of middle age, from religious doubt to a hesitant but growing faith—is what makes The Inn of Dreams so compelling. Custance was never simply a Decadent poet, though she was deeply shaped by that movement. As she grew older, she, like her husband, distanced herself from the artistic and personal excesses of the 1890s. Her poetry matured, and so did her perspective.

A Guide for the Modern Reader

In editing this volume, I provided endnotes that offer a pedagogical approach to the poems, helping readers unlock their layers of meaning. The modern reader may find Custance’s work opaque, not because her poetry is intentionally obscure, but because our shared cultural references—mythological, literary, and religious—have fragmented over time. Even in university literature courses today, professors must first introduce students to the Bible, classical mythology, and major intellectual movements before engaging with individual authors.

A more directive approach, then, is not about restricting interpretation but providing the necessary tools to fully appreciate Custance’s work. She was influenced by Symbolism, but her poetry is not as abstract as that of many Symbolist poets. Often, reading a poem two or three times reveals its narrative structure. Understanding her allusions—whether to mythology, Catholic imagery, or other poets—allows us to feel the full force of her verse.

Who Was Olive Custance?

Born in 1874 to a well-to-do English family, Custance was introduced to the literary and artistic circles of fin de siècle London at a young age. Her early poetic talent was nurtured by figures like John Gray, and she quickly became a published poet, contributing to The Yellow Book and other avant-garde journals.

Her reputation has often been reduced to her associations—her brief entanglement with the Parisian salon of Natalie Clifford Barney, her marriage to Lord Alfred Douglas. But these relationships, though important, do not define her poetry. The Inn of Dreams itself is not a Decadent manifesto, nor a love letter to any one person. It is a deeply personal, sometimes melancholic reflection on love, beauty, faith, and the passage of time.

A Poet in Transition

In The Inn of Dreams, we see Custance as an artist in transition. The youthful exuberance of Opals (1897) and the passionate lyricism of Rainbows (1902) give way to a more introspective and spiritually aware voice. She remains a poet of beauty, but beauty here is not only physical or fleeting—it carries a sense of eternity.

Critics have often dismissed Custance’s later poetry as a dilution of her youthful energy, a retreat from the high aestheticism of the 1890s. But this is to misunderstand her artistic journey. Like many of her contemporaries, she was searching for something beyond the artificiality of the fin de siècle. The poet who once sang of androgynous beauty and ephemeral pleasures now turns her gaze toward more enduring truths.

A Forgotten Legacy

Despite her talent, Custance has largely been neglected in literary history. Her poetry was never widely studied, and modern interest in her has often been limited to discussions of her relationship with Douglas or her brief association with Barney’s circle.

Even in the 1980s, when Brocard Sewell published a small selection of her poems, the edition was shaped by his own preferences rather than presenting Custance’s own vision. This new edition of The Inn of Dreams seeks to rectify that, giving readers the collection exactly as she assembled it in 1911.

The response to Custance’s poetry has always been polarized. Some critics in her own time found her work too vague and sentimental; others found it too decadent, too elliptical. But there is a quiet strength in her best poems, an ability to capture both the intoxication of youth and the melancholy of passing time.

What Comes Next?

This edition is a step toward a fuller appreciation of Custance’s work. There remains much more to be done. A complete Collected Works—bringing together Opals, Rainbows, The Blue Bird, and The Inn of Dreams, along with uncollected poems, letters, and diary entries—would provide a fuller picture of her development as a poet.

I hope to undertake this project in the future. But for now, The Inn of Dreams stands as a testament to Custance’s own vision of her poetry. This is how she wished to be remembered.

It is time we grant her that wish.

Where to Find It

The Inn of Dreams: Poems by Olive Custance, edited by Edwin King, was published in 2015 and remains available on Amazon.

For those interested in further reading, research, or discussion about Custance, I invite you to visit www.olivecustance.org, my blog dedicated to her poetry, life, and literary legacy.