W.T. Horton

William Thomas Horton (1864-1919) was a mystic, illustrator and author. Horton's minimalistic black and white drawings make his work similar to Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) and Charles Ricketts (1866-1931). Today, Horton is usually remembered as W. B. Yeats's close and intimate friend. Yeats sponsored Horton's initiation into the occult organization the Golden Dawn. He also wrote the introduction to Horton's Book of Images (1898), and Yeats includes the illustrator in his 1928 poem about Golden Dawn called “All Souls' Night” (lines 21-40).

Further Reading

Pierce, David. “William Horton (1864-1919).” Yeats’s Worlds: Ireland, England, and the Poetic Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. 326. Print

Ray, Gordon Norton, Thomas V Lange, and Charles V Passela. “William T. Horton (1864-1919).” The Illustrator and the Book in England from 1790 to 1914. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1976. 325, 202-203. Print.

Harper, George Mills. W.B. Yeats and W.T. Horton : the record of an occult friendship. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. : Humanities Press, 1980. Print.

Horton, W. T.. A Book of Images. London: Unicorn Press, 1898. Print.

--- William Thomas Horton (1864-1919) a selection of his work. Ed. Roger Ingpen. London: Ingpen and Grant, 1929. Print.

Yeats, W. B. "All Souls’ Night." The Tower. London, Macmillan, 1929.