The first work to appear in this volume, "Oracles: the Autobiography of an Art", is like a little collected works in itself and contained Crowley's backlog of poems from 1889–1903, including an unfinished Buddhist classic the "Dhammapada", Charles Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du mal" (also unfinished) and some from "Green Alps", his teenage collection of mountaineering poetry. "Alice, an Adultery" however is a sign of Crowley's maturing poetical skills (as well as again his love of adultery) and claims in the introduction to have been passed him in MS. form from the dying lover of "Alice" on his journeys in the East. It is written in the form of fifty sonnets numbered from the first day to the fiftieth and laments the poet's desire to make love with a married woman.