William James Linton (1812-1897) was an English-born American wood engraver, political reformer and author of memoirs, novels, poetry and non-fiction. When he was sixteen Linton was apprenticed to the wood-engraver George Wilmot Bonner. After working as a journeyman engraver with two or three firms, he went into partnership in 1842 with John Orrin Smith. For years he had concerned himself with the social and European political problems of the time, and was actively engaged in the republican propaganda. In 1844 he took a prominent part in exposing the violation by the English post office of Mazzini's correspondence. In 1852, he printed for private circulation an anonymous volume of poems entitled The Plaint of Freedom. Amongst his other works are Claribel and Other Poems (1865), James Watson (1879), The Flower and the Star and Other Stories (1891) and Memories (1895).