William Edward Hayter Preston

Born: 1891.

Died: 1964.

William Edward Hayter Preston was a British literary editor, journalist, poet and author of several books.

He was from adolescence interested in free thought, socialism and the occult. In 1906 he became a friend of Victor B. Neuburg, who introduced him to Aleister Crowley. In 1912 Preston joined Crowley's group Mysteria Mystica Maxima but left the group in 1914 following an argument with Crowley. Starting in 1925, Preston wrote a column for The Sunday Referee under the pseudonym "Vanoc II"—the columnist "Vanoc I" was Arnold White (who died in February 1925). In 1933, Hayter Preston became literary editor of the Sunday Referee and gave Neuburg a column called Poet’s Corner, in which, among others, he published Pamela Hansford Johnson, David Gascoyne, and Dylan Thomas, leading eventually to the appearance of the Dylan Thomas's first collection, 18 Poems. He was also prone to publishing just about anybody who sent work into him, being terrified of hurting someone’s feelings by rejection, a trait Dylan relentlessly satirises in his letters. In April 1940 he was one of the founders of the Surrealist Group in London.

Hayter Preston and Victor Neuburg founded the Vine Press in 1920.