Sholto Johnstone Douglas of the writer Oscar Wilde. When Wilde sued Bosie's father for libel when accused of "posing as a somdomite" ("sic"), this led to Wilde's downfall and imprisonment. In 1895, when during his trial Wilde was released on bail, Sholto Johnstone Douglas stood surety for £500 of the bail money. In his "Noel Coward: A Biography" (1996), Philip Hoare writes of "...late nineteenth-century enthusiasts of boy-love; writers, artists and Catholic converts inclined to intellectual paedophilia, among them Wilde, Frederick Rolfe, Sholto Douglas and Lord Alfred Douglas." As a portrait painter, Douglas belonged to the period of John Singer Sargent and "...led
Lord Alfred Douglas a "roman à clef" based on the relationship of Wilde and Douglas, it would be one of the texts used against Wilde during his trials in 1895. Douglas has been described as spoiled, reckless, insolent and extravagant. He would spend money on men and gambling and expected Wilde to contribute to funding his tastes. They often argued and broke up, but would also always reconcile. Douglas had praised Wilde's play "Salome" in the Oxford magazine, "The Spirit Lamp", of which he was editor (and used as a covert means of gaining acceptance for homosexuality). Wilde had originally written "Salomé" in