To deal with the divergence-free constraint in a double curl problem: curl µ −1 curl u = f and div εu = 0 in Ω, where µ and ε represent the physical properties of the materials occupying Ω, we develop a δ-regularization method: curl µ −1 curl u δ + δεu δ = f to completely ignore the divergence-free constraint div εu = 0. It is shown that u δ converges to u in H(curl ; Ω) norm as δ → 0. The edge finite element method is then analyzed for solving u δ. With the finite element solution u δ,h , quasi-optimal error bound in H(curl ; Ω) norm is obtained between u and u δ,h , including a uniform (with respect to δ) stability of u δ,h in H(curl ; Ω) norm. All the theoretical analysis is done in a general setting, where µ and ε may be discontinuous, anisotropic and inhomogeneous, and the solution may have a very low piecewise regularity on each material subdomain Ω j with u, curl u ∈ (H r (Ω j)) 3 for some 0 < r < 1, where r may be not greater than 1/2. To establish the uniform stability and the error bound for r ≤ 1/2, we have respectively developed a new theory for the K h ellipticity (related to mixed methods) and a new theory for the Fortin interpolation operator. Numerical results presented confirm the theory.