English poet Olive Custance was BOTD in 1874. Born in London to a prominent military family, she grew up in their ancestral home in Norfolk. She moved to London in her teens, befriending notorious homosexuals Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas, Aubrey Beardsley and John Gray, and began writing poetry, inspired by gay French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. Her work was published in the journal The Yellow Book, illustrated by Beardsley. She had affairs with lesbian writer and salon hostess Natalie Clifford Barney and Barney’s partner Renée Vivien, both of whom published indiscreet memoirs mentioning Custance. Six months after the death of Wilde, she wrote a fan letter to Douglas and began a correspondence. They were married in 1902 and had a son together. Their marriage was turbulent, with frequent separations, bouts of conversion to Catholicism and their son’s mental illness. Bafflingly, Custance remained with Douglas for the rest of her life. She continued writing poems, occasionally published in Douglas’ journal The Academy. She died in 1944, aged 70. Largely ignored after her death, the 1995 publication of her collected poems inspired new interest in her work.