Wikisource

Screenshot of wikisource.org home page
URL	wikisource.org
Slogan	The Free Library
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Digital library
Registration	Optional
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation
Created by	User-generated
Launched	November 24, 2003[1]
Alexa rank	5,494 (June 2012[update])[2]
Current status	Online

Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has expanded to become a general-content library. The project officially began in November 24, 2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later. The project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration.

The project holds works that are either in the public domain or freely licenced; professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products; and are verifiable. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of other digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofReadPage extension, which ensures the reliability and accuracy of the project's texts. Some Wikisources now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource hosts other media, from comics to film to audio books. The only original works allowed on Wikisource are translations and annotations.

History[link]

Wikisource's early (2003–2005) history included several changes of name and location (URL), and the move to language subdomains in 2005.

Early history[link]

The original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing primary evidence and original source texts, and as an archive in its own right. The collection was initially focussed on important historical and cultural material, distinguishing it from other digitial archives such as Project Gutenberg.^[1]

The original Wikisource logo

The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages (a play on words for Project Gutenberg).^[1]

In 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this. In describing the proposed project, user The Cunctator said, "It would be to Project Gutenberg what Wikipedia is to Nupedia,"^[3] soon clarifying the statement with "we don't want to try to duplicate Project Gutenberg's efforts; rather, we want to complement them. Perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG."^[4] Initial comments were sceptical, with Larry Sanger questioning the need for the project, writing "The hard question, I guess, is why we are reinventing the wheel, when Project Gutenberg already exists? We'd want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly?",^[5] and Jimmy Wales adding "like Larry, I'm interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, which is whatever we want it to be."^[6]

The project began its activity at ps.wikipedia.org. The contributors understood the "PS" subdomain to mean either "primary sources" or Project Sourceberg.^[3] However, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia (the ISO language code of the Pashto language is "ps").

Project Sourceberg officially launched on November 24, 2003 when it received its own temporary URL, at sources.wikipedia.org, and all texts and discussions hosted on ps.wikipedia.org were moved to the temporary address. A vote on the project's name changed it to Wikisource on December 6, 2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL (at http://wikisource.org) until July 23, 2004.^[7]

Logo and slogan[link]

Since Wikisource was initially called "Project Sourceberg", its first logo was a picture of an iceberg.^[1] Two votes conducted to choose a successor were inconclusive, and the original logo remained until 2006. Finally, for both legal and technical reasons – because the picture's license was inappropriate for a Wikimedia Foundation logo and because a photo cannot scale properly – a stylized vector iceberg inspired by the original picture was mandated to serve as the project's logo.

The first prominent use of Wikisource's slogan — The Free Library — was at the project's multilingual portal, when it was redesigned based upon the Wikipedia portal on August 27, 2005, (historical version).^[8] As in the Wikipedia portal the Wikisource slogan appears around the logo in the project's ten largest languages.

Clicking on the portal's central images (the iceberg logo in the center and the "Wikisource" heading at the top of the page) links to a list of translations for Wikisource and The Free Library in 60 languages.

ProofreadPage[link]

The Proofread Page extension in action.

An extension called ProofreadPage was developed for Wikisource by user ThomasV to improve the quality of texts held by the project. This displays pages of scanned works side-by-side with the text relating to that page, allowing the text to be accurately proofread and later checked for quality by any user.^[9][10][11] Once a book, or other text, has been scanned, the raw images can be modified with image processing software to correct for page rotations and other problems. The retouched images can then be converted into a PDF or DjVu file and uploaded to either Wikisource or Wikimedia Commons.^[9]

This system ensures the reliability of texts on Wikisource. It not only provides fully proofread works for the project, it also makes the original page scans immediately available to any user so any errors that do make it through the process can be corrected later (or verified as being part of the original). Further, in terms of principle, the extension combines the Wikimedia concept that anyone can contribute with the process of proofreading - access to a physical copy of the original book is not necessary to be able to contribute to the project.

Milestones[link]

Within two weeks of the project's official start at sources.wikipedia.org, over 1,000 pages had been created, with approximately 200 of these being designated as actual articles. On January 4, 2004, Wikisource welcomed its 100th registered user. In early July, 2004 the number of articles exceeded 2,400, and more than 500 users had registered. On April 30, 2005, there were 2667 registered users (including 18 administrators) and almost 19,000 articles. The project passed its 96,000th edit that same day.^{[citation needed]}

On November 27, 2005, the English Wikisource passed 20,000 text-units in its third month of existence, already holding more texts than did the entire project in April (before the move to language subdomains). On February 14, 2008, the English Wikisource passed 100,000 text-units with Chapter LXXIV of Six Months at the White House, a memoir by painter Francis Bicknell Carpenter.^[12] In November, 2011, 250,000 text-units milestone was passed by.

Library contents[link]

Wikisource inclusion criteria expressed as a Venn diagram. Green indicates the best possible case, where the work satisfies all three primary requirements. Yellow indicates acceptable but not ideal cases.

Wikisource collects and stores in digital format previously published texts; including novels, non-fiction works, letters, speeches, constitutional and historical documents, laws and a range of other documents. All texts collected are either free of copyright or released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.^[1] Texts in all languages are welcome, as are translations. In addition to texts, Wikisource hosts material such as a comics, films, recordings and spoken word works.^[1] All texts held by Wikisource must have been previously published; the project does not host "vanity press" books or documents produced by its contributors.^{[1][13][14][15][16]}

A scanned source is preferred on many Wikisources and required on some. Most Wikisources will, however, accept works transcribed from offline sources or acquired from other digital libraries.^[1] The requirement for prior publication can also be waived in a small number of cases if the work is a source document of notable historical importance. The legal requirement for works to be licensed or free of copyright remains constant.

The only original pieces accepted by Wikisource are annotations and translations.^[17] Wikisource, and its sister project Wikibooks, has the capacity for annotated editions of texts. On Wikisource, the annotations are supplementary to the original text, which remains the primary objective of the project. By contrast, on Wikibooks the annotations are primary, with the original text as only a reference or supplement, if present at all.^[16] Annotated editions are more popular on the German Wikisource.^[16] The project also accommodates translations of texts provided by its users. A significant translation on the English Wikisource is the Wiki Bible project, intended to create a new, "laissez-faire translation" of The Bible.^[18]

Structure[link]

Language subdomains[link]

A separate Hebrew version of Wikisource (he.wikisource.org) was created in August 2004. The need for a language-specific Hebrew website derived from the difficulty of typing and editing Hebrew texts in a left-to-right environment (Hebrew is written right-to-left). In the ensuing months, contributors in other languages including German requested their own wikis, but a December vote on the creation of separate language domains was inconclusive. Finally, a second vote that ended May 12, 2005, supported the adoption of separate language subdomains at Wikisource by a large margin, allowing each language to host its texts on its own wiki.

An initial wave of 14 languages was set up by Brion Vibber on August 23, 2005.^[19] The new languages did not include English, but the code en: was temporarily set to redirect to the main website (wikisource.org).

At this point the Wikisource community, through a mass project of manually sorting thousands of pages and categories by language, prepared for a second wave of page imports to local wikis. On September 11, 2005, the wikisource.org wiki was reconfigured to enable the English version, along with 8 other languages that were created early that morning and late the night before.^[20]

Three more languages were created on March 29, 2006,^[21] and then another large wave of 14 language domains was created on June 2, 2006.^[22] Currently, there are individual subdomains for Wikisources in more than 60 languages,^[23] besides the additional languages hosted at wikisource.org, which serves as an incubator or a home for languages without their own subdomains (31 languages are currently hosted locally)

wikisource.org[link]

During the move to language subdomains, the community requested that the main wikisource.org website remain a functioning wiki, in order to serve three purposes:

1. To be a multilingual coordination site for the entire Wikisource project in all languages. In practice, use of the website for multilingual coordination has not been heavy since the conversion to language domains. Nevertheless, there is some policy activity at the Scriptorium, and multilingual updates for news and language milestones at pages such as Wikisource:2007.
2. To be a home for texts in languages without their own subdomains, each with its own local main page for self-organization.^[24] As a language incubator, the wiki currently provides a home for over 30 languages that do not presently have their own language subdomains. Some of these are very active, and have built libraries with hundreds of texts (such as Esperanto and Volapuk), and one with thousands (Hindi).
3. To provide direct, ongoing support by a local wiki community for a dynamic multilingual portal at its Main Page, for users who go to http://wikisource.org. The current Main Page portal was created on August 26, 2005, by ThomasV, who based it upon the Wikipedia portal.

The idea of a project-specific coordination wiki, first realized at Wikisource, also took hold in another Wikimedia project, namely at Wikiversity's Beta Wiki. Like wikisource.org, it serves Wikiversity coordination in all languages, and as a language incubator. But unlike Wikisource, its Main Page does not serve as its multilingual portal^[25] (which is not a wiki page).

Reception[link]

Wikisource has original works on the topic: National Archives and Records Administration Collection

Larry Sanger has criticised Wikisource, and sister project Wiktionary, because the collaborative nature and technology of these projects means there is no oversight by experts and therefore their content is not reliable.^[26]

Bart D. Ehrman, a New Testament scholar and professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has criticised the English Wikisource's project to create a user-generated translation of The Bible saying "Democratization isn't necessarily good for scholarship."^[18] Richard Elliott Friedman, an Old Testament scholar and professor of Jewish studies at the University of Georgia, has identified errors in the translation of the Book of Genesis.^[18]

In 2010, the Wikimedia France signed an agreement with the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France) to add scans from its own Gallica digital library to French Wikisource. 1,400 public domain French texts were added to the Wikisource library as a result via upload to the Wikimedia Commons. The quality of the transcriptions, previously automatically generated by optical character recognition (OCR), were expected to be improved by Wikisource's human proofreaders.^[27][28][29]

In 2011, the English Wikisource received many high-quality scans of documents from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as part of their efforts "to increase the accessibility and visibility of its holdings." Processing and upload to Commons of these documents, along with many images from the NARA collection, was facilitated by a NARA "Wikimedian in residence", Dominic. Many of these documents have been transcribed and proofread by the Wikisource community and now feature as links on the National Archives' own online catalog.^[30]

See also[link]

• Category:Wikisource link templates
• Category:Wikisource templates

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wikisource

Wikisource:

• English Wikisource
• Wikisource:For Wikipedians
• Multilingual portal

About Wikisource:

• Danny Wool on Wikisource (Wikimedia Foundation article).
• A personal perspective on the history of Wikisource by Angela Beesley
• Early discussions and plans for the project (Meta)

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2011)

Simón Bolívar
Simón Bolívar at age 36, 1819
2nd President of Venezuela
In office August 6, 1813 – July 2, 1814
Preceded by	Cristóbal Mendoza
In office February 15, 1819 – December 17, 1819
Succeeded by	José Antonio Páez
President of Gran Colombia (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama)
In office December 17, 1819 – May 4, 1830
Vice President	Francisco de Paula Santander
Succeeded by	Domingo Caycedo
1st President of Bolivia
In office August 12, 1825 – December 29, 1825
Succeeded by	Antonio José de Sucre
President of Peru
In office February 17, 1824 – January 28, 1827
Preceded by	José Bernardo de Tagle, Marquis of Torre-Tagle
Succeeded by	Andrés de Santa Cruz
Personal details
Born	(1783-07-24)July 24, 1783 Caracas, Captaincy General of Venezuela, Spanish Empire
Died	December 17, 1830(1830-12-17) (aged 47) Santa Marta, New Granada
Spouse(s)	María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa
Religion	Roman Catholic
Signature

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco (July 24, 1783 – December 17, 1830), commonly known as Simón Bolívar (Spanish pronunciation: [siˈmom boˈliβar]), was a Venezuelan military and political leader. Together with José de San Martín, he played a key role in Hispanic-Spanish America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire, and is today considered one of the most influential politicians in American history.

Following the triumph over the Spanish Monarchy, Bolívar participated in the foundation of the first union of independent nations in Hispanic-America, a republic, which was named Gran Colombia, of which he was president from 1819 to 1830. Bolívar remains regarded in Hispanic-America as a hero, visionary, revolutionary, and liberator. During his lifetime, he led Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia to independence, and helped lay the foundations for democratic ideology in much of Latin America.

The surname Bolívar derives from the Bolívar aristocrats who came from a small village in the Basque Country, Spain, called La Puebla de Bolívar.^[1] His father came from the male line of the de Ardanza family.^[2][3] His maternal grandmother, however, was descended from some families from the Canary Islands that settled in the country.^[a]

The Bolívars settled in Venezuela in the sixteenth century. His first South American Bolívar ancestor was Simón de Bolívar (or Simon de Bolibar; the spelling was not standardized until the nineteenth century), who lived and worked with the governor of the Santo Domingo from 1550 to 1570. When the governor of Santo Domingo was reassigned to Venezuela in 1589, Simón de Bolívar came with him. As an early settler in Caracas Province, he became prominent in the local society and he and his descendants were granted estates, encomiendas, and positions in the Caracas cabildo.^[4]

The social position of the family is illustrated by the fact that when the Caracas Cathedral was built in 1594, the Bolívar family had one of the first dedicated side chapels. The majority of the wealth of Simón de Bolívar's descendants came from the estates. The most important of these estates was a sugar plantation with an encomienda that provided the labor needed to run the estate.^[5] In later centuries, slave and free black labor would have replaced most of the encomienda labor. Another portion of Bolívar wealth came from the silver, gold, and more importantly, copper mines in Venezuela. In 1632, small gold deposits first were mined in Venezuela, leading to further discoveries of much more extensive copper deposits. From his mother's side, the Palacios family, Bolívar inherited the copper mines at Cocorote. Native American and African slaves provided the majority of the labor in these mines.^[6]

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, copper exploitation became so prominent in Venezuela that it became known as Cobre Caracas ("Caracas copper"). Many of the mines became the property of the Bolívar family. Bolívar's grandfather, Juan de Bolívar y Martínez de Villegas, paid 22,000 ducats to the monastery at Santa Maria de Montserrat in 1728 for a title of nobility that had been granted by the king, Philip V of Spain, for its maintenance. The crown never issued the patent of nobility, and so the purchase became the subject of lawsuits that were still going on during Bolívar's lifetime, when independence from Spain made the point moot. (If successful, Bolívar's older brother, Juan Vicente, would have become the Marqués de San Luis and Vizconde de Cocorote.) Bolívar was able to use his family's immense wealth to finance his revolutionary efforts.^{[citation needed]}

Early life[link]

Birthplace of Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela.

An 18th century portrait of Juan Vicente Bolívar y Ponte, father of Simón Bolívar.

Although some people believe he was actually born in the Bolívar residence located in San Mateo in Aragua State, which belonged to the Caracas province by 1783, it is officially claimed that Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas, Captaincy General of Venezuela (now the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), on July 24, 1783 and he was baptized as Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios. His mother was Doña María de la Concepción Palacios y Blanco and his father was Coronel Don Juan Vicente Bolívar y Ponte. He had two older sisters and a brother: María Antonia, Juana, and Juan Vicente. Another sister, María del Carmen, died at birth.^[7]

Bolívar's parents found themselves in a circumstance that forced them to entrust the baby Simón Bolívar to the care of Doña Ines Manceba de Miyares and the family's slave la negra Hipolita. A couple of years later Bolívar returned to the love and care of his parents, but this traumatic experience would have a severe effect on Bolívar's life. Before his third birthday, his father Juan Vicente had died.^[7]

Bolívar by José Gil de Castro in 1825.

Bolívar's father died in his sleep when Bolívar was two and a half years old. Bolívar's mother, Maria Concepción de Palacios y Blanco, died when he was approaching nine years of age. He then was placed in the custody of a severe instructor, Miguel José Sanz, but this relationship did not work out and he was sent back to his home. In an effort to give Bolívar the best education possible, he received private lessons from the renowned professors Andrés Bello, Guillermo Pelgrón, Jose Antonion Negrete, Fernando Vides, Father Andújar, and the most influential of all, Don Simón Rodríguez, formerly known as Simón Carreño. Don Simón Rodriguez was later to become Bolívar's friend and mentor, and he instilled in the young man the ideas of liberty, enlightenment, and freedom.^[8]

In the meantime, he was mostly cared for by his nurse, a black slave woman named Hipólita, whom he later called "the only father I have known."^[9] His instructor Don Simón understood the young Bolívar's personality and inclinations, and tried from the very beginning to be an empathetic friend. They took long walks through the countryside and climbed mountains. Don Simón taught Bolívar how to swim and ride horses, and, in the process, taught him about liberty, human rights, politics, history, and sociology.^[8]

Military career[link]

When Bolívar was fourteen, his private instructor and mentor Simón Rodríguez had to abandon the country, as he was accused of being involved in a conspiracy against the Spanish government in Caracas. Thus, Bolívar entered the military academy of the Milicias de Veraguas, which his father had directed as colonel years earlier. Through these years of military training, he developed his fervent passion for armaments and military strategy, which he later would employ on the battlefields of the wars of independence.^[8] A few years later, while in Paris, Bolívar witnessed the coronation of Napoleon in Notre Dame, and this majestic event left a profound impression upon him. From that moment he wished that he could emulate similar triumphant glory for the people of his native land.^[8]

[edit] El Libertador

Bolívar in 1816, during his stay in Haiti.

Bolívar returned to Venezuela in 1807.

In 1813 he was given a military command in Tunja, New Granada (modern day Colombia), under the direction of the Congress of United Provinces of New Granada, which had formed out of the juntas established in 1810.

This was the beginning of the famous Admirable Campaign. He entered Mérida on May 24, where he was proclaimed as El Libertador.^[10] That event was followed by the occupation of Trujillo on June 9. Six days later, on June 15, he dictated his famous Decree of War to the Death. Caracas was retaken on August 6, 1813 and Bolívar was ratified as "El Libertador", thus proclaiming the restoration of the Venezuelan republic. Due to the rebellion of José Tomás Boves in 1814 and the fall of the republic, he returned to New Granada, where he then commanded a force for the United Provinces and entered Bogotá in 1814, recapturing the city from the dissenting republican forces of Cundinamarca. He intended to march into Cartagena and enlist the aid of local forces in order to capture Royalist Santa Marta. In 1815, after a number of political and military disputes with the government of Cartagena, however, Bolívar fled to Jamaica, where he was denied support and an attempt was made on his life, after which he fled to Haiti, where he was granted sanctuary and protection. He befriended Alexandre Pétion, the leader of the newly independent country, and petitioned him for aid.^[10]

Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander during the Congress of Cúcuta, October 1821.

In 1816, with Haitian soldiers and vital material support (on the condition that he abolish slavery), Bolívar landed in Venezuela and captured Angostura (now Ciudad Bolívar). At that time, Venezuela remained a captaincy of Spain, however, and Bolívar decided that he would first fight for the independence of New Granada (which was a vice royalty), intending later to consolidate the independence of Venezuela and other less politically important Spanish territories.^{[citation needed]}

The campaign for the independence of New Granada was consolidated with the victory at the Battle of Boyacá in 1819. From this newly consolidated base of power, Bolívar launched outright independence campaigns in Venezuela and Ecuador, and these campaigns were concluded with the victories at the Battle of Carabobo in 1821 and the Battle of Pichincha in 1822. On September 7, 1821 the Gran Colombia (a state covering much of modern Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, northern Peru, and northwest of Brazil) was created, with Bolívar as president and Francisco de Paula Santander as vice president.

On July 26 and 27 of 1822, Bolívar held the Guayaquil conference with the Argentinian General José de San Martín, who had received the title of Protector of Peruvian Freedom in August 1821 after having partially liberated Peru from the Spanish. Thereafter, Bolívar took over the task of fully liberating Peru. The Peruvian congress named him dictator of Peru on February 10, 1824, which allowed Bolívar to reorganize completely the political and military administration. Assisted by Antonio José de Sucre, Bolívar decisively defeated the Spanish cavalry at the Battle of Junín on August 6, 1824. Sucre destroyed the still numerically superior remnants of the Spanish forces at Ayacucho on December 9, 1824.

On August 6, 1825, at the Congress of Upper Peru, the "Republic of Bolivia" was created. Bolívar is thus one of the few men to have a country named after him.

Proclamation of dictatorial power[link]

Battle of Carabobo, June 24, 1821

Bolívar had great difficulties maintaining control of the vast Gran Colombia. In 1826, internal divisions had sparked dissent throughout the nation, and regional uprisings erupted in Venezuela. The new South American union had revealed its fragility and appeared to be on the verge of collapse. To preserve the union, an amnesty was declared and an arrangement was reached with the Venezuelan rebels, but this increased the political dissent in neighboring New Granada. In an attempt to keep the nation together as a single entity, Bolívar called for a constitutional convention at Ocaña in March 1828.^[11]

Battle of Junín, August 1824

Bolívar's dream had been to engender an American Revolution-style federation among all the newly independent republics, with a government set up solely to recognize and uphold the rights of the individual.^{[citation needed]} This dream had succumbed to the pressures of particular interests throughout the region, which rejected that model and had little or no allegiance to liberal principles. For this reason, and to prevent a break-up, Bolívar sought to implement a more centralist model of government in Gran Colombia, including some or all of the elements of the Bolivian constitution he had written, which included a lifetime presidency with the ability to select a successor (although theoretically, this presidency was held in check by an intricate system of balances). This move was considered controversial in New Granada and was one of the reasons the deliberations, which met from April 9 to June 10, 1828. The convention almost ended up drafting a document which would have implemented a radically federalist form of government, which would have greatly reduced the powers of a central administration. Unhappy with what would be the ensuing result, pro-Bolívar delegates withdrew from the convention, leaving it moribund.^{[citation needed]}

After the failure of this congress to write a new constitution, Bolívar proclaimed himself dictator on August 27, 1828 through the Decree of Dictatorship. He considered this as a temporary measure, as a means to reestablish his authority and save the republic, although it increased dissatisfaction and anger among his political opponents. An assassination attempt on September 25, 1828 failed, thanks to the help of his lover, Manuela Sáenz. Bolívar afterward described Manuela as Libertadora del Libertador (the liberator of the liberator). Although Bolívar emerged safely from the attempt, this nevertheless greatly affected him. Dissent continued, and uprisings occurred in New Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador during the next two years.^{[citation needed]}

Death[link]

Sketch of Bolívar at age 47 made from life by José María Espinosa in 1830.

Saying, "all who served the Revolution have plowed the sea", Bolívar finally resigned his presidency on April 27, 1830, intending to leave the country for exile in Europe, possibly in France. He already had sent several crates (containing his belongings and writings, which he had selected) ahead of him to Europe,^[12] but he died before setting sail.

On December 17, 1830, at the age of forty-seven, Simón Bolívar died after a painful battle with tuberculosis^[13] in the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino in Santa Marta, Gran Colombia (now Colombia). On his deathbed, Bolívar asked his aide-de-camp, General Daniel F. O'Leary to burn the remaining, extensive archive of his writings, letters, and speeches. O'Leary disobeyed the order and his writings survived, providing historians with a vast wealth of information about Bolívar's liberal philosophy and thought, as well as details of his personal life, such as his longstanding love affair with Manuela Sáenz. Shortly before her own death in 1856, Sáenz augmented this collection by giving O'Leary her own letters from Bolívar.^[12]

Bolívar's death by Venezuelan painter Antonio Herrera Toro

His remains were buried in the cathedral of Santa Marta. Twelve years later, in 1842, at the request of President José Antonio Páez, they were moved from Santa Marta to Caracas, where a monument was set up for his interment in the National Pantheon of Venezuela. The 'Quinta' near Santa Marta has been preserved as a museum with numerous references to his life.^[14] In 2010, symbolic remains of Bolívar's lover, Manuela Sáenz, were interred by his side during a national ceremony reuniting them and honoring her role in the liberations.^[15]

On January 2008, President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez set up a commission^[16] to investigate theories indicating that Bolívar could have been the victim of an assassination. On several occasions, Chavez has claimed that Bolívar was in fact poisoned by "New Granade traitors".^[17] In April 2010, infectious diseases specialist Paul Auwaerter studied existing records of Bolívar's symptoms and concluded that he may have suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning, but considered that both acute poisoning and murder were unlikely.^[18][19] In July 2010, Bolívar's body was ordered to be exhumed to advance the investigations.^[20] In July 2011, international forensics experts released their report claiming there was no proof of poisoning or other unnatural cause of death.

Private life[link]

Manuela Sáenz, lover of Bolívar who rescued him from an assassination attempt and whose burial has been united with his recently

In 1799, following the early deaths of his father Juan Vicente (died 1786) and his mother Concepción (died 1792), he traveled to Mexico, France, and Spain, at age sixteen, to complete his education. While in Madrid during 1802, he married María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaiza, who was his only wife. She was related to the family of the Marqués del Toro of Caracas.^[8] Eight months after returning to Venezuela with her, she died from yellow fever. Bolívar returned to Europe in 1804, where he lived in Napoleonic France for a while and undertook the Grand Tour.^[21] During this time in Europe, it was rumored that he met Alexander von Humboldt in Paris. Humboldt wrote in 1804 of having met a young man in Paris and Humboldt had noticed how the young man loved liberty and made for some lively conversation, but he left Humboldt unimpressed.^{[citation needed]}

Relatives[link]

Bolívar had no children as a result of contracting measles and mumps as a child. His closest living relatives descend from his sisters and brother. One of his sisters died in infancy. His sister, Juana Bolívar y Palacios, married their maternal uncle, Dionisio Palacios y Blanco, and had two children, Guillermo and Benigna. Guillermo Palacios died fighting alongside his uncle Simón in the battle of La Hogaza on December 2, 1817. Benigna had two marriages, the first one to Pedro Breceño Méndez and the second to Pedro Amestoy.^[22] Their great-grandchildren, Bolívar's closest living relatives, Pedro, and Eduardo Mendoza Goiticoa lived in Caracas, as of 2009. The family still lives in Caracas today.

His eldest sister, María Antonia, married Pablo Clemente Francia and had four children: Josefa, Anacleto, Valentina, and Pablo. María Antonia became Bolívar's agent to deal with his properties while he served as president of Gran Colombia and she was an executrix of his will. She retired to Bolívar's estate in Macarao, which she inherited from him.^[23]

His older brother, Juan Vicente, who died in 1811 on a diplomatic mission to the United States, had three children born out of wedlock whom he recognized: Juan, Fernando Simón, and Felicia Bolívar Tinoco. Bolívar provided for the children and their mother after his brother's death. Bolívar was especially close to Fernando and in 1822 sent him to study in the United States, where he attended the University of Virginia. In his long life, Fernando had minor participation in some of the major political events of Venezuelan history and also traveled and lived extensively throughout Europe. He had three children, Benjamín Bolívar Gauthier, Santiago Hernández Bolívar, and Claudio Bolívar Taraja. Fernando died in 1898 at the age of eighty-eight.^[24]

Bolívar in Law[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2012)

Bolívar helped enact laws to protect the environment, wild life and the native population of Central and South America. He also freed South American slaves 40 years before the U.S. Civil War.

Political beliefs[link]

Posthumous portrait of Simón Bolívar

He was an admirer of both the American Revolution and the French Revolution. In fact George Washington and Bolívar shared the same objective: independence for their people and the establishment of democratic states. He admired Thomas Jefferson and sent his nephew to the University of Virginia, which was founded and designed by Jefferson. Bolívar differed, however, in political philosophy from the leaders of the revolution in the United States on two important matters. First of all, he was staunchly anti-slavery, despite coming from an area of Spanish America that relied heavily on slave labor. Second, while he was an admirer of the American independence, he did not believe that its governmental system could function in Latin America.^[25] Despite his firm abolitionist stance, throughout his life he continued to express fears of uprising and rule by pardos (mixed-race people) and claimed that the governance of heterogeneous societies like Venezuela "will require an infinitely firm hand."^[26]

He felt that the US had been established in land especially fertile for democracy. By contrast, he referred to Spanish America as having been subject to the "triple yoke of ignorance, tyranny, and vice." If a republic could be established in such a land, in his mind, it would have to make some concessions in terms of liberty. This is shown when Bolívar blamed the fall of the first republic on his subordinates trying to imitate "some ethereal republic" and in the process, not paying attention to the gritty political reality of South America.^[27]

Among the books accompanying him as he traveled were, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations", Voltaire's "Letters", and when he wrote the Bolivian Constitution, Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws.^[28] His Bolivian constitution placed him within the camp of what would become Latin American conservatism in the later nineteenth century. The Bolivian Constitution had a lifelong presidency and a hereditary senate, essentially recreating the British unwritten constitution, as it existed at the time, without formally establishing a monarchy. It was his attempts to implement a similar constitution in Gran Colombia that led to his downfall and rejection by 1830.

Regarding his immigration policy for Colombia, he viewed the immigration of North-Americans and Europeans as necessary, (except for the Spanish, who were expelled) for improving the country's economy, arts, and sciences,^[29] following the steps of the Latin-American criollo elites, who accepted without questions many of the evolutionist, social, and racial theories of their time.

Freemasonry[link]

Similar to some others in the history of American Independence (George Washington, Benito Juárez, José de San Martín, Bernardo O'Higgins and Francisco Miranda), Simón Bolívar was a Freemason. He was initiated in 1803 in the Masonic Lodge Lautaro which operated in Cadiz, Spain.^[30] It was in this lodge that he first met some of his revolutionary peers, such as José de San Martín. In May 1806 he was conferred the rank of Master Mason in the "Scottish Mother of St. Alexander of Scotland" in Paris. During his time in London, he frequented "The Great American Reunion" lodge in London, founded by Francisco de Miranda. In April 1824, Simón Bolívar was given the 33rd degree of Inspector General Honorary.

Legacy[link]

Simón Bolívar Memorial Monument, standing in Santa Marta (Colombia) at the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino

Bolívar's square in Caracas.

Simón Bolívar's statue in Paris

Political legacy[link]

Bolívar's political legacy has been massive and he is a very important figure in South American political history. The 'Bolivarianism' of the last two decades, such as in the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez, tries to evoke the memory of Bolívar, using a left-wing view of his writings and supposed ambitions as the basis for a political movement.^[31][32] However, some critics, including descendants of Bolivar, state that Bolívar would have rejected these positions.^[33]

After his defeat and early death, it took more than a decade to rehabilitate his lost image in South America. By the 1840s, the memory of Bolívar proved useful for the construction of a sense of nationhood. In Venezuela, in particular, a type of cult to Bolívar appeared, first under the President José Antonio Páez and most dramatically under President Antonio Guzmán Blanco. Since the image of Bolívar became central to the national identities of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, his mantle is claimed by nearly all politicians from all parts of the political spectrum.^[34][b] Bolivia and Venezuela (the Bolívarian Republic of Venezuela) are both named after Bolívar.

Monuments, institutions and place names[link]

Most cities and towns in Venezuela and Colombia have a bust or statue of Bolívar.

In Venezuela, every city or town has a main square known as Plaza Bolívar.

• Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain), "Simón Bolívar Street", a street in Bilbao city center to honour Bolívar and his Basque ancestry and a monument at Venezuela square.
• The main square in Bogotá, Colombia is called plaza de Bolívar (Bolivar Square), around this square rise the Colombian national capitol, the Colombian palace of justice, the palace of lievano( which houses the mayor of Bogotá ), and the main cathedral of the city.
• Bolivar (Basque Country, Spain), Bolívar's ancestor's home town; a monument to Bolívar, a gift by Venezuela. A museum devoted to Simón Bolívar, his family and ancestors was built in Simón Bolívar's patrimonial house.
• Currencies, the boliviano and the Venezuelan bolívar

See also[link]

	Spanish American wars of independence portal
	Venezuela portal
	Biography portal

• Brigadier General Antonio Valero de Bernabe
• General Louis Peru de Lacroix, a biographer of Bolivar who served as one of his generals
• Gabriel García Márquez's novel The General in His Labyrinth (1989), a fictionalized account, of Bolívar's last days
• USS Simon Bolivar, U.S. Navy submarine named after Simón Bolívar: it was commissioned in October 1965, de-activated in September 1994 and de-commissioned in February 1995.
• Asteroid 712 Boliviana is named in his honor.

Notes[link]

Explanatory notes

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (February 2011)

Cited sources

• Arismendi Posada, Ignacio (1983). Gobernantes Colombianos [Colombian Presidents] (second ed.). Bogotá, Colombia: Interprint Editors Ltd.; Italgraf. 
• Bushnell, David; Langley, Lester D. (2008). Simón Bolívar: Essays on the Life and Legacy of the Liberator. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-5619-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZcHpTbbV2NMC. 
• Grant, Will (5 July 2010). "Venezuela honours Simón Bolívar's lover Manuela Saenz". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10504821. Retrieved 17 July 2010. 
• Lynch, John (2006). Simón Bolívar: A Life. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11062-3. 
• Lynch, John (5 July 2007). Simón Bolívar: A Life. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12604-4. 
• Masur, Gerhard (1969). Simón Bolívar (Revised ed.). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 
• Petre, Francis Loraine (1910). Simon Bolivar "El libertador": a life of the chief leader in the revolt against Spain in Venezuela, New Granada & Peru. J. Lane. 
• Slatta, Richard W.; de Grummond, Jane Lucas (2003). Simón Bolívar's Quest for Glory. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-1-58544-239-3. 
• Thornton, John Kelly (28 April 1998). Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-62724-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=AVZDHeVEeywC&pg=PA174. Retrieved 8 April 2012. 

Further reading[link]

• Reza, German de la. "La invención de la paz. De la república cristiana del duque de Sully a la sociedad de naciones de Simón Bolívar", México, Siglo XXI Editores, 2009. ISBN 978-607-03-0054-7
• Bushnell, David. The Liberator, Simón Bolívar. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.
• Bushnell, David (ed.) and Fornoff, Fred (tr.), El Libertador: Writings of Simón Bolívar, Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-19-514481-9
• Bushnell, David and Macaulay, Neill. The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (Second edition). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 978-0-19-508402-3
• Ducoudray Holstein, H.L.V. Memoirs of Simón Bolívar. Boston: Goodrich, 1829.
• Harvey, Robert. "Liberators: Latin America's Struggle For Independence, 1810–1830". John Murray, London (2000). ISBN 978-0-7195-5566-4
• Lynch, John. Simón Bolívar and the Age of Revolution. London: University of London Institute of Latin American Studies, 1983. ISBN 978-0-901145-54-3
• Lynch, John. The Spanish American Revolutions, 1808–1826 (Second edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1986. ISBN 978-0-393-95537-8
• Madariaga, Salvador de. Bolívar. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1952. ISBN 978-0-313-22029-6
• Marx, Karl. "Bolívar y Ponte" in The New American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge, Vol. III. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1858.
• Mijares, Augusto. The Liberator. Caracas: North American Association of Venezuela, 1983.
• O'Leary, Daniel Florencio. Bolívar and the War of Independence/Memorias del General Daniel Florencio O'Leary: Narración (Abridged version). Austin: University of Texas, [1888] 1970. ISBN 978-0-292-70047-5
• Bastardo-Salcedo,JL (1993) Historia Fundamental de Venezuela UVC,Caracas.

External links[link]

Find more about Simón Bolívar on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

• Simón Bolívar on In Our Time at the BBC. (listen now)
• The Life of Simón Bolívar
• The Louverture Project: Simón Bolívar – Information about the support Bolívar received from Haiti.
• In Profile: Simón Bolívar – The Liberator
• About the surname Bolíbar/Bolívar, in Spanish
• Paternal ancestors of the Liberator, in Spanish
• Coats of arms of the Bolíbars, in Spanish
• Maternal ancestors of the Liberator (Palacios family), in Spanish
• (Spanish) Glrbv.org: Biography
• Beside Bolivar: The Edecán Demarquet – About C. E. Demarquet, one of Bolívar's principal aides
• "Building a New History by Exhuming Bolívar" Simon Romero, The New York Times, 3 August 2010
• Simón Bolívar at Find a Grave

v t e Heads of state of Colombia United Provinces of New Granada (1810–1816) José Miguel Pey de Andrade Jorge Tadeo Lozano Antonio Nariño Manuel Benito de Castro Antonio Nariño Manuel de Bernardo Álvarez del Casal Camilo Torres Tenorio José María del Castillo y Rada Joaquín Camacho José Fernández Madrid Custodio García Rovira Antonio Villavicencio Manuel Rodríguez Torices José Miguel Pey de Andrade Camilo Torres Tenorio José Fernández Madrid Custodio García Rovira Liborio Mejía Fernando Serrano Gran Colombia (1819–1831) Simón Bolívar Domingo Caycedo Joaquín de Mosquera Rafael Urdaneta Domingo Caycedo Republic of New Granada (1831–1858) Domingo Caycedo José María Obando José Ignacio de Márquez Francisco de Paula Santander José Ignacio de Márquez Domingo Caycedo Pedro Alcántara Herrán Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera José Hilario López José de Obaldía José Hilario López José María Obando José María Melo Tomás de Herrera José de Obaldía Manuel Maria Mallarino Mariano Ospina Rodríguez Grenadine Confederation (1858–1863) Mariano Ospina Rodriguez Bartolomé Calvo Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera United States of Colombia (1863–1886) Francisco Javier Zaldúa Eustorgio Salgar Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera Manuel Murillo Toro José María Rojas Garrido Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera Joaquín Riascos Santos Acosta Santos Gutiérrez Eustorgio Salgar Manuel Murillo Toro Santiago Pérez Aquileo Parra Julián Trujillo Largacha Rafael Núñez Francisco Javier Zaldúa Clímaco Calderón José Eusebio Otalora Ezequiel Hurtado Rafael Núñez Republic of Colombia (1886–2012) José María Campo Serrano Eliseo Payán Rafael Núñez Carlos Holguín Mallarino Miguel Antonio Caro Rafael Núñez Miguel Antonio Caro Manuel Antonio Sanclemente José Manuel Marroquín Rafael Reyes Jorge Holguín Ramón González Valencia Carlos Eugenio Restrepo José Vicente Concha Marco Fidel Suárez Jorge Holguín Pedro Nel Ospina Miguel Abadía Méndez Enrique Olaya Herrera Alfonso López Pumarejo Eduardo Santos Alfonso López Pumarejo Alberto Lleras Camargo Mariano Ospina Pérez Laureano Gómez Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez Gustavo Rojas Pinilla Gabriel París Gordillo Alberto Lleras Camargo Guillermo León Valencia Carlos Lleras Restrepo Misael Pastrana Borrero Alfonso López Michelsen Julio César Turbay Ayala Belisario Betancur Virgilio Barco Vargas César Gaviria Ernesto Samper Andrés Pastrana Arango Álvaro Uribe Juan Manuel Santos

v t e Presidents of Bolivia Simón Bolívar Antonio José de Sucre José María Pérez de Urdininea Pedro Blanco Soto Andrés de Santa Cruz Sebastián Ágreda Mariano Enrique Calvo Cuellar José Ballivián Eusebio Guilarte Vera Víctor González Fuentes José Miguel de Velasco Franco Manuel Isidoro Belzu Jorge Córdova José María Linares José María Achá Mariano Melgarejo Agustín Morales Adolfo Ballivián Tomás Frías Ametller Hilarión Daza Narciso Campero Gregorio Pacheco Aniceto Arce Mariano Baptista Severo Fernández José Manuel Pando Eliodoro Villazón Ismael Montes José Gutiérrez Bautista Saavedra Felipe S. Guzmán Hernando Siles Reyes Carlos Blanco Galindo Daniel Salamanca Urey José Luis Tejada Sorzano David Toro Germán Busch Carlos Quintanilla Enrique Peñaranda Gualberto Villarroel Néstor Guillén Tomás Monje Enrique Hertzog Mamerto Urriolagoitia Hugo Ballivián René Barrientos Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas Alfredo Ovando Candía Juan José Torres Hugo Banzer Juan Pereda David Padilla Wálter Guevara Alberto Natusch Lidia Gueiler Tejada Luis García Meza Tejada Celso Torrelio Guido Vildoso Hernán Siles Zuazo Víctor Paz Estenssoro Jaime Paz Zamora Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada Hugo Banzer Jorge Quiroga Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada Carlos Mesa Eduardo Rodríguez Evo Morales

v t e Presidents of Peru San Martín Luna Pizarro La Mar Bernardo de Tagle Riva Agüero Sucre Bernardo de Tagle Bolívar Santa Cruz Salazar y Baquíjano La Mar Gutiérrez de la Fuente Gamarra Luna Pizarro Orbegoso Bermúdez Salaverry Santa Cruz Gamarra Menéndez Torrico Vidal Figuerola Vivanco Nieto Castilla Elías Menéndez Figuerola Menéndez Castilla Echenique Castilla San Román Castilla P. Diez Canseco Pezet Prado Pezet P. Diez Canseco Prado P. Diez Canseco Balta Gutiérrez F. Diez Canseco Zevallos Pardo Prado Piérola García Calderón Montero Cáceres Iglesias Arenas Cáceres Morales Bermúdez Borgoño Cáceres Candamo Piérola Romaña Candamo S. Calderón Pardo y Barreda Leguía Billinghurst Benavides Pardo y Barreda Leguía Ponce Sánchez Cerro Elías Arias Jiménez Samanez Ocampo Sánchez Cerro Benavides Prado Ugarteche Bustamante y Rivero Odría Noriega Odría Prado Ugarteche Pérez Godoy Lindley Belaúnde Velasco Morales Bermúdez Belaúnde García Fujimori Paniagua Toledo García Humala

William Ernest Henley
Born	23 August 1849 Gloucester, England
Died	11 July 1903(1903-07-11) (aged 53)
Occupation	Poet, critic, and editor
Nationality	English
Education	The Crypt School, Gloucester
Period	c. 1870–1903
Notable work(s)	Invictus

William Ernest Henley (23 August 1849 – 11 July 1903) was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus".

Life and career[link]

Henley was born in Gloucester and was the eldest of a family of six children, five sons and a daughter. His father, William, was a bookseller and stationer who died in 1868 and was survived by his young children and creditors. His mother, Mary Morgan, was descended from the poet and critic, Joseph Warton. From 1861–67 Henley was a pupil at the Crypt Grammar School (founded 1539).

A Commission had attempted recently to revive the school by securing the brilliant and academically distinguished T. E. Brown (1830–1897) as headmaster. Brown's appointment was relatively brief (c.1857–63) but was a "revelation" for Henley because it introduced him to a poet and "man of genius—the first I'd ever seen". This was the start of a lifelong friendship and Henley wrote an admiring obituary to Brown in the New Review (December 1897): "He was singularly kind to me at a moment when I needed kindness even more than I needed encouragement".^[1]

From the age of 12 Henley suffered from tuberculosis of the bone which resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee during either 1865 or 1868–69.^[2] According to Robert Louis Stevenson's letters, the idea for the character of Long John Silver was inspired by his real-life friend Henley. Stevenson's stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, described Henley as "..a great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial, astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled like music; he had an unimaginable fire and vitality; he swept one off one's feet". In a letter to Henley after the publication of Treasure Island Stevenson wrote "I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver...the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was entirely taken from you".

Frequent illness often kept him from school, although the misfortunes of his father's business may also have contributed. In 1867, Henley passed the Oxford Local Schools Examination and soon afterwards moved to London where he attempted to establish himself as a journalist.^[3] However, his work over the next eight years was interrupted by long periods in hospital because his right foot was also diseased. Henley contested the diagnosis that a second amputation was the only way to save his life by becoming a patient of the pioneering surgeon Joseph Lister (1827–1912) at The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. After three years in hospital (1873–75), during which he wrote and published the poems collected as In Hospital, Henley was discharged. Lister's treatment had not effected a complete cure but enabled Henley to have a relatively active life for nearly 30 years.

On 22 January 1878 he married Hannah (Anna) Johnson Boyle (1855–1925), the youngest daughter of Edward Boyle, a mechanical engineer from Edinburgh and his wife, Mary Ann née Mackie.^[4]

His literary acquaintances also resulted in his sickly young daughter, Margaret Henley (born 4 September 1888), being immortalised by J. M. Barrie in his children's classic Peter Pan.^[5][6] Unable to speak clearly, the young Margaret referred to her friend Barrie as her "fwendy-wendy", resulting in the use of the name Wendy, which was coined for the book. Margaret never read the book; she died on 11 February 1894 at the age of 5 and was buried at the country estate of her father's friend, Harry Cockayne Cust, in Cockayne Hatley, Bedfordshire.^[5][6]

After his recovery, Henley earned a living in publishing. In 1889 he became editor of the Scots Observer, an Edinburgh journal similar to the old Saturday Review. It was transferred to London in 1891 as the National Observer and remained under Henley's editorship until 1893. Though, as Henley confessed, the paper had almost as many writers as readers, and its fame was confined mainly to the literary class, it was a lively and influential feature of the literary life of its time. Henley had an editor's gift of discerning talent, and the "Men of the Scots Observer", as Henley affectionately and characteristically termed his band of contributors, in most instances justified his insight. Charles Whibley was friends with Henley and assisted Henley edit the Scots Observer and also the National Observer. The journal's outlook was conservative and was often sympathetic to the growing imperialism of its time, and among other services to literature it published Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads.

Henley died in 1903 at the age of 53 at his home in Woking and his ashes interred in his daughter's grave in the churchyard at Cockayne Hatley in Bedfordshire.^[7]

Works[link]

Bust of Henley by Rodin

Henley's gravestone, Cockayne Hatley

Arguably his best-remembered work is the poem "Invictus", written in 1875. It is said that this was written as a demonstration of his resilience following the amputation of his foot due to tubercular infection. This passionate and defiant poem should be compared with his beautiful and contemplative acceptance of death and dying in the poem "Margaritae Sorori". The poems of In Hospital are also noteworthy as some of the earliest free verse written in England. With J.S. Farmer Henley edited a seven volume dictionary of Slang and its analogues which inspired his two translations into thieves' slang of ballades by Francois Villon.

In 1890, Henley published Views and Reviews, a volume of notable criticisms, which he described as "less a book than a mosaic of scraps and shreds recovered from the shot rubbish of some fourteen years of journalism". The criticisms, covering a wide range of authors (all English or French save Heinrich Heine and Leo Tolstoy) were remarkable for their insight. In 1892, he published a second volume of poetry, named after the first poem, "The Song of the Sword" but re-titled "London Voluntaries" after another section in the second edition (1893). Robert Louis Stevenson wrote that he had not received the same thrill of poetry so intimate and so deep since George Meredith's "Joy of Earth" and "Love in the Valley". "I did not guess you were so great a magician. These are new tunes; this is an undertone of the true Apollo. These are not verse; they are poetry". During 1892, Henley also published three plays written with Stevenson: Beau Austin, Deacon Brodie and Admiral Guinea. In 1895, Henley's poem, "Macaire", was published in a volume with the other plays. Deacon Brodie was produced in Edinburgh in 1884 and later in London. Herbert Beerbohm Tree produced Beau Austin at the Haymarket on 3 November 1890.

Henley's poem, "Pro Rege Nostro", became popular during the First World War as a piece of patriotic verse. It contains the following refrain:

What have I done for you, England, my England?

What is there I would not do, England my own?

The poem and its sentiments have since been parodied by many people^[who?] often unhappy with the jingoism they feel it expresses or the propagandistic use it is put to.^[opinion] "England, My England", a short story by D. H. Lawrence and also England, Their England the novel by A. G. Macdonell both use the phrase.

While incarcerated on Robben Island prison, Nelson Mandela recited the poem "Invictus" to other prisoners and was empowered by its message of self mastery.^[8][9] In the 2009 movie Invictus, produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, the poem is referenced several times. It becomes the central inspirational gift from Mandela, played by Morgan Freeman, to Springbok rugby team captain François Pienaar, played by Matt Damon, in advance of the post-apartheid Rugby World Cup hosted in 1995 by South Africa and won by the underdog Springboks.^[10]

The famous Finnish female writer Hella Wuolijoki has mentioned in her memoirs Enkä ollut vanki that the poem "Invictus" also inspired and encouraged her during her incarceration in Katajanokka/Skatudden prison in Helsinki at the end of World War II.^[11]

References[link]

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Henley, William Ernest". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: William Ernest Henley

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: William Ernest Henley

Wikisource has original works written by or about: William Ernest Henley

• Works by William Henley at Project Gutenberg
• Poetry Archive: 137 poems of William Ernest Henley