[4] Douglas developed an interest in natural science as a child and began contributing articles to papers about zoology at the age of 18.

The next year he married a cousin, Elizabeth Louisa Theobaldina FitzGibbon (their mothers were sisters, daughters of Baron Ernst von Poellnitz).

They had two children, Louis Archibald (Archie) and Robert Sholto (Robin),[6] and Norman's first published book, Unprofessional Tales (1901), was written in collaboration with Elizabeth and first appeared under the pseudonym Normyx.

Douglas then moved to Capri, began dividing his time between the Villa Daphne there and London, and became a more committed writer.

[5] D. H. Lawrence based a character in his novel Aaron's Rod (1922) on Douglas, which, according to Richard Aldington, led to a falling out between the two writers.

[8] In the book Twentieth Century Authors Douglas stated that he disliked Marxism, Puritanism and "all kinds of set forms, including official Christianity".

Many of these books, notably the first edition of Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, would have been prosecuted for obscenity if they had been published in London.

"[11][12][13] The Latin inscription on his tombstone, from an ode by Horace, reads: Omnes eodem cogimur,[6] "We are all driven to the same end".

[15] In 1917, he was also charged with the indecent assault of two boys (one being Esmond Knight) but the case was dropped after Douglas provided an alibi.

Having first visited the south of Italy with his brother in 1888, before he was 30 he had abandoned his pregnant Russian mistress and his job at the British Embassy in St Petersburg and purchased a villa at Posillipo.

By then he had also published his first piece on the subject of southern Italy...."[22] Douglas's most famous work, South Wind, is a fictionalised account of life in Capri, with controversial references to moral and sexual issues.

These works include Siren Land (1911), Fountains in the Sand, described as "rambles amongst the oases of Tunisia" (1912), Old Calabria (1915),[23] Together (Austria) (1923), Alone (Italy) (1921), and the short “One Day” (Greece) (1929).