Lord Alfred Douglas to him in an article on Wilde. Douglas was either plaintiff or defendant in several trials for civil or criminal libel. In 1913 he was charged with libelling his father-in-law. Also in 1913 he accused Arthur Ransome of libelling him in his book "Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study". He saw this trial as a weapon against his enemy Ross, not understanding that Ross would not be called to give evidence. The court found in Ransome's favour and Douglas was bankrupted by the failed libel suit. Ransome did remove the offending passages from the second edition of his book. In the
Lord Alfred Douglas stock market raid and no present of fine furniture". In 1924, while in prison, Douglas, in an echo of Wilde's composition of "De Profundis" (Latin for "From the Depths") during his incarceration, wrote his last major poetic work, "In Excelsis" (In the Highest), which contains 17 cantos. Since the prison authorities would not allow Douglas to take the manuscript with him when he was released, he had to rewrite the work from memory. Douglas maintained that his health never recovered from his harsh prison ordeal, which included sleeping on a plank bed without a mattress. Following his incarceration in 1924,