Invictus, a popular poem by Victorian writer William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), achieved pop stardom when its title became the name of the well-received 2009 film Invictus (Clint Eastwood, Revelations Entertainment). The movie tells the story of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) and the Springboks, the world champion South African rugby team. The movie used the poem for its dramatic effect because it was one of Mandela’s favorites, its message of defiance steeling him and his fellow political prisoners during their decades of incarceration on Robben Island. It was a favorite of modern political icons Churchill, F.D.R., Nehru, J.F.K., and King. But it also acquired a more disturbing group of devotees that included domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh. Overlooked today is the original context of the poem: Henley’s recovery from tuberculous osteomyelitis of the distal tibia, a condition that at the time often ended with amputation, and with surgery, death from gangrene. And there is yet another backstory: Joseph Lister was Henley’s surgeon. His pioneering use of carbolic acid and antisepsis salvaged the limb, avoided surgery and its attendant risk of infection, and saved Henley’s life. In another hospital and under the care of a different surgeon, the outcome would have been tragic. A collection of poems Henley wrote during his 21-month stay in the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, known as In Hospital, traced his despair and dread on admission to joy at discharge. Written the same year of his discharge from the hospital, Invictus is his proclamation of triumph over illness and death. The story of the poet, his surgeon, and his single memorable poem has interest because of the intersection of literary and surgical history and the personalities that emerge from its retelling. In a 1945 work, Joseph Buckley,