William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) was an English poet, critic and editor, the author of Invictus. A friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, who partly modelled Long John Silver on him, he championed young writers such as Kipling, Yeats and H. G. Wells.
Illness
William Ernest Henley was born in Gloucester on 23 August 1849, the eldest son of a bookseller. As a boy he developed tuberculosis of the bone, and one leg was amputated below the knee.
To save the other leg, he went to the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh in 1873 to be treated by the surgeon Joseph Lister, and stayed nearly two years. There he wrote the poems of In Hospital, among them Invictus.
Friendship with Stevenson
In the infirmary he met Robert Louis Stevenson, who visited him and became a close friend. They wrote plays together, and Stevenson said that the energy and the crutch of Long John Silver were drawn from Henley.
The friendship broke in 1888, after Henley suggested that a story published by Stevenson's wife Fanny was taken from one by Stevenson's cousin, and it was never fully mended.
The editor
Henley edited magazines, notably The Scots Observer, later The National Observer, and The New Review, where he published Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads, Wells's The Time Machine and early work by Yeats and J. M. Barrie.
His A Book of Verses appeared in 1888. His only daughter, Margaret, died in 1894 aged five. Henley died at Woking on 11 July 1903.
Anecdotes
The model for Silver
In a letter of 1883, Stevenson told Henley that the idea of Long John Silver came from him: 'it was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot John Silver.'
Wendy's first name
Henley's daughter Margaret is said to have called J. M. Barrie her 'friendy-wendy', which may have given Barrie the name Wendy for Peter Pan.
Frequently asked questions
What is Invictus?
A short poem written by Henley in hospital in 1875, expressing courage in the face of suffering; it was published in 1888.
Why did Henley spend years in hospital?
He suffered from tuberculosis of the bone and stayed nearly two years at the Edinburgh Infirmary to save his remaining leg.
Which writers did Henley publish?
Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, W. B. Yeats and J. M. Barrie, among others.