William C. Van Horne was one of North America's most accomplished men. Born in Illinois in 1843, Van Horne started working in the railway business at a young age. In 1881 he was lured north to Canada to become general manager of the fledgling Canadian Pacific Ralway. The railroading general pushed through construction of the CPR's transcontinental line and then went on to become the company's president. During his time with the CPR, Van Horne developed a telegraph service, launched the Empress line of Pacific steamships in 1891, and founded CP Hotels. He capped his career by opening up Cuba's interior with a railway. A man of prodigious energy and many talents, he also became Canada's foremost art collector and one of the country's leading financiers. For all of his amazing accomplishments, Van Horne was knighted in 1894. When he died church bells throughout the length and breadth of Cuba tolled to mark his passing, and when his funeral train made its way across Canada, all traffic on the CPR system was suspended for five minutes.

Winner of the 2005 Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction , the 2005 University of British Columbia Award for Best Canadian Biography, and the Canadian Railroad Historical Association Award for Best Railway Book of the Year. William Van Horne was one of North America’s most accomplished men. Born in Illinois in 1843, he became a prominent railway figure in the United States before coming to Canada in 1881 to become general manager of the fledgling Canadian Pacific Railway. Van Horne pushed through construction of the CPR’s transcontinental line and went on to become company president. He also became one of Canada’s foremost financiers and art collectors, capping his career by opening Cuba’s interior with a railway.

This volume reproduces almost 100 remarkably detailed and texturally rich photographs. Essays by noted historians John Stilgoe, Mary Panzer, and Kenneth Finkel place Rau and his work in the context of the history of American advertising and landscape photography.

Sir William Van Horne (1843–1915), a gifted connoisseur most famously associated with the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, amassed of one of the most extensive collections of Japanese ceramics in North America. Obsession is an illuminating account of the how and why behind his passion for studying and acquiring nearly 1,200 objects. Ron Graham assembles a profile of Van Horne's larger-than-life personality as well as essays about his place at the top of the art collectors in Montreal's Golden Square Mile and the afterlife of his collection following his death. Accompanying the texts are historical photographs and documents, a detailed catalogue of over three hundred individual pieces in the Royal Ontario Museum and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and a selection of beautiful reproductions of Van Horne's personal notebooks and exquisite watercolours from the archives of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Obsession presents a remarkable collection in the context of the life and career of a nineteenth-century Canadian business giant.