Żeleński was born in Grodkowice into a landowner family. When he was eight, his father was killed and his mother critically injured in the rabacja, the Galician peasants' uprising of 1846.
He was a representative of neoromanticism in Polish music. Since early days Żeleński showed interest in chamber music. While in secondary school, he wrote two quartets and a trio that, however, have not survived to our times. Later chamber pieces include: Sextet in C major, Op. 9 and Wariacje na temat własny (Variations on an Original Theme) for string quartet, Op. 29 Żeleński composed while studying first in Prague and later in Paris. He died in Kraków.
Władysław was the father of physician and writer Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński.
