William Ernest Henley by Harry Furniss |
William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)
William Henley was a British poet, editor and critic. Tuberculosis took one of his feet as a child, and almost claimed another leg as a young adult. While recovering from surgery in an Edinburgh infirmary, Henley began a friendship with author Robert Louis Stevenson. (Stevenson said that the gregarious Henley provided the inspiration for his character Long John Silver.) His impressionistic poem-writing career began about the same time. Among his earliest works was his best known, Invictus, with its famous concluding lines: “I am the master of my fate; / I am the captain of my soul.” In 1889, Henley assumed the post of what became the influential conservative journal, the National Observer. |