Maurice Salis Schwabe (1871–1915) was exiled to the antipodes by his family to avoid his involvement in the sex scandal erupting around the celebrated author Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). He arrived in Sydney in 1893. 

Following Schwabe’s sudden departure from England, his London-based lover Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas (1870–1945) wrote to him. These two romantic letters preserve rare documentary evidence of the intimacy shared between the two men at a time when homosexual acts between consenting adults were criminalised.  

In 1919 these letters were deposited with the Mitchell Library by Detective JP Rochaix (1851–1920). The detective noted that the letters suggested ‘Wilde-Douglas’ relations between Douglas and Schwabe. Remarkable as documents of the uninhibited love language used by Douglas, they also divulge the circumstances leading up to Wilde’s landmark trial and conviction for sodomy in 1894.