Henley, William Ernest (1849–1903)

English poet, critic, and editor. His finest work is London Voluntaries 1893, a collection of unconventional but stimulating and challenging poems. He was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, with whom he collaborated in Deacon Brodie 1880 and other plays. He edited the Scots Observer 1889.

Henley was born in Gloucester. At the age of 25 his health failed; he was sent to a hospital in Edinburgh, and from there he sent poems to Leslie Stephen, editor of the Cornhill Magazine. Stephen visited his contributor in hospital, with Robert Louis Stevenson. In 1877 Henley went to London and began editing the magazine London. He had the knack of ‘discovering’ literary figures; for example, Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads first appeared in his paper.