Product Description

First produced in 1890, this charming book includes 39 of James Whitcomb Riley's signature poems, such as "Old Aunt Mary's," "Little Orphant Annie," and "The Raggedy Man." Graced by noted Brown County artist Will Vawter's illustrations of scenes such as "The Nine Goblins," "The Circus Day Parade," and "Barefoot, Hungry, Lean Ornery Boys," Riley Child-Rhymes with Hoosier Pictures recalls simpler times gone by. This Library of Indiana Classics edition reproduces the 1905 edition. A must-have for Riley enthusiasts everywhere, this book offers a look at how childhood was lived a century ago.

Customer Reviews (2)

Wonderful poetry collection!
My children and I have really enjoyed this collection of James Whitcomb Riley's poetry. This volume contains our favorite Riley poems, and we share them by reading aloud.

IU Press did a wonderful job reprinting this book. The artwork and the new typeface are beautiful! I am very glad to have this on our shelf.

Charming and true to the times in which it was written
I grew up having a few favorite poems read to me from this book.There are some poems that certainly require you to conform to the country lingo in which they're written.Given the fact that this book was originally published in the late 1800's, it provides a wonderful look into history, poetry as entertainment, and a way of speaking that is not heard much anymore.My very favorite poem is "The Bear Story".It is "written" by a boy named Alex and has so many charming twists, turns and changes of mind mid-stream that it's both engaging and funny.Of course this book contains "Little Orphant Annie", and my other favorite, "The Raggedy Man."If you're a lover of old poetry or fun poetry, this is certainly a book that deserves a spot on your shelf.Enjoy! ... Read more

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Gobble-uns tales as told by Little Orphant Annie. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

CHILD FRIENDLY REGARDLESS OF THE TITLE
A very GOOD & FUN book to read to kids. Older kids will love reading it over & over. Used copies are reasonable, actually cheap for such a fun story by the most famous poet of Indiana, James Whitcomb Riley (b 1849). An Indianapolis Children's hospital is named after him. He used old Hoosier dialect in his poetry, making him quite read and praised in his lifetime--and since. He wrote of boyhood, the common man, and the local genre. Even Mark Twain enjoyed attending Riley's performances of his poetry.

Joel Schick illustrated the written work of JWR with a magnificent flair. For kids, the black/white ink pictures will delight. The supposedly scary story is filled with characters drawn with smiles, so it's not too scary for wee lads and lasses. The story begins: "Little Orphant (Riley dialect spelling) Annie's come to our house to stay," and most drawings, many full page, have Little Orphant Annie smiling broadly. Oh there are some "Gobble-uns 'at gits you" drawn that try to look scary, but are so exaggerated that they just become more of the fun of this great, classic, children's book.

The book even has a good moral for the young 'uns ta 'ear.
An old book, yes, but worth the recycling to new generations.

Hoosier Boy
Everytime my little grandson (age 6) finds this book at the local library he has to take it out.For his upcoming birthday I ordered him his own copy.What a delightfully wicked story, written by one Hoosier boy for my Hoosier boy.The illustrations are wonderful as well and add much to this much loved story.

The Gobble-uns'll Git You Ef You Don't Watch Out!
I first became aware of this book when I took my then three-year-old son to our library's halloween story time.Both of us fell in love with this illustrator's vision of the James Whitcomb Riley standard.Little Orphant Annie comes alive to remind us all to: "say our prayers", "help the poor and needy ones", "cherish them that loves us", and all manner of good behavior....or suffer the consequences!We checked this book out on a weekly basis until we both could recite it by heart as we drove around town.Quite an accomplishment for such a little guy.I'm glad it's still available--I'd like to give him a copy when he graduates from high school.

child`s memories
I`m 44 and I use to live in Indiana My mother got me this book when I was little and I loved it. I still remember it today and because of this book I love to read. I wish I still had it today. I have read 100`s of book but Mr. Riley has stayed with me. If you have a chance to read this book please do adults and children both. thank you Dlight ... Read more

Product Description

The best-loved poems by the "Hoosier Poet" are here collected to read and cherish time and time again. Included are some of Riley's most durable and endearing works -- poems about nature, home, and country as well as the dialect poems for which Riley is famous.

Product Description
Active and restless, "Bud" Riley, the boy who would grow to be one of the 19th century's most popular and respected poets, had a hard time sitting still in school-unless he was drawing or writing the "poems he heard in his head." Fine illustrations and text rich with history draw young readers into James Whitcomb Riley's world on the edge of the Midwestern wilderness. Children fully experience Riley's lively youth, from learning to swim (nearly drowning in the process) to acting as ringmaster in his own circus, complete with animal acts, music, and acrobats. Fun facts about James Whitcomb Riley provide children with a preview of the poet's adult accomplishments and little-known facts about the man greatly admired by novelist Mark Twain and President Benjamin Harrison. ... Read more

Product Description

Few lives have left so vivid an impression upon a native environment as that of James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet. His folksy, down-home rhymes are still enormously popular in his native state and beyond. This publication brings back into print the complete Riley repertoire of more than 1,000 poems, including such all-time favorites as "Little Orphant Annie" (far and away the best-loved of all Riley characters), "The Raggedy Man," "Our Hired Girl," "A Barefoot Boy," "The Bumblebee," "Granny," and "When the Frost Is on the Punkin." It is said that Indiana's best-known poet did not portray but invented the typical Hoosier. Applying imaginative skill, Riley altered and adapted the people around him to suit his purpose. As Jeannette Covert Nolan once put it, the figure who emerged was "a mellow, humorous rustic, a quaint, bucolic philosopher, unlettered but gifted with an earthy shrewdness, a peasant wisdom, a heart of gold, speaking a drawling, hybrid tongue, a dubious dialect as yet unidentified by any philologist." In his heyday Riley was famous all over the world. Though often called a children's poet, he actually wrote about children for adults, delighting in emotional reminders of an irretrievable past -- perhaps one that never quite existed. Throughout his life Riley looked back wistfully and sentimentally upon his childhood days, turning the longings and unfulfilled dreams of youth into verse. So celebrated was he in Indiana that in many public elementary schools, students were required to memorize and recite one of his poems every week for admiring audiences of visiting parents.

If I Knew What Poets KnowIf I knew what poets know, Did I know what poets do, If I knew what poets know,Would I write a rhyme Would I sing a song, I would find a themeOf the buds that never blowSadder than the pigeon's cooSweeter than the placid flowIn the summer-time?When the days are long?Of the fairest dream:Would I sing of golden seeds Where I found a heart in pain,I would sing of love that livesSpringing up in ironweeds? I would make it glad again;On the errors it forgives:And of rain-drop turned to snow, And the false should be the true, And the world would better growIf I knew what poets know? Did I know what poets do. If I knew what poets know.-- James Whitcomb Riley

Customer Reviews (10)

Best poems ever to deal with sorrow, joy, humor,death
James Whitcomb Riley is one of the few poets to deal with the death of youngsters and oldsters alike.His poems give comfort to any who have experienced loss.He is little known today for these poems but they appear throughout this magnificent book. In these complete works there are love poems, grief poems and humorous poems told with such lyrical expertise and wisdom from someone who has experienced every emotion he writes about.Although his style is old fashioned rhyming poetry it is truly delightful.
I applaud the publishers of this great book (I have three copies and send it to friends and family)and recommend it to ALL who love poetry whether it be contemporary or otherwise.

Peeurst D'lite
Twas struck with words as ne'r b'fore,
those gentle flowed from a poet of yore.
Each letter 'round our hearts was wrapt,
melodies of beauty lovely tapt.

Who'd er'er thunk that a pokety ole' man,
could know our thoughts and understan.
There ain't any we'd recomand as highly,
as Indyanna's James Whitcomb Riley.

Riley's a hoot!
After mulling over volumes like the "Viking Portable Library" it is refreshing to have an entire volume of light-hearted, folksy fun. Of course, Riley's works aren't ALL in that vein, but favorites like Ragedy Man and Little Orphan Annie are, and that's why I like him. Being from California, I hardly know how to use the type of speech inflections and what-not that Riley hasn't written into these rhyming tales. But the closer I get to being able to master such speech the more it entertains my kids! Great collection, get it!

Riley's the greatest!
When I was a kid, we had a friend who would recite "Little Orphant Annie" to us before we went to bed.I'll be damned if that poem didn't scare me into being a good kid!I plan on reading it to my 3 year old tonight with the hopes of scaring her straight enough to start being nice to her baby brother! One can dream, right?.....

Comforter To The Skylark
Folksy Hoosier James Whitcomb Riley (1849 - 1916) is America's premier poet of the sentimental. The Complete Poetical Works Of James Whitcomb Riley brings together over 1,000 touching, humorous, easy to read, and intelligent but non - intellectual poems, many filled with longing for irretrievable childhood innocence, freedom, and joy. Today's readers will find the volume a genuine time capsule into the past; these poems will evoke not only the reader's own memories of childhood, but also a simpler and perhaps more innocent and joyous America.The ambitions and expectations expressed by the speakers, narrators, and characters in the poems are humble, the horizons of their world near. One of the secrets of Riley's backward - glancing poems is that his reflections are only partially regretful; the joys of the past are equaled by the child - like joy still present in the adult poet's heart.Dozens of the pieces included here are suitable for reading to and sharing with children.

Titles 'The Swimming Hole,' 'The Noble Old Elm,' 'Company Manners,' 'When Mother Combed My Hair,' 'Us Farmers In The Country' 'My First Spectacles,' 'Blooms In May,' 'Two Sonnets To The June - Bug,' 'The Land Of Used - To - Be,' and 'Our Boyhood Haunts' offer a good indication of the book's content. There are numerous nature poems and celebrations of the seasons, summer meadows of "clover to the knee," August moons, lazy rivers, "the twitter of the bluebird and the wren," and, in one of Riley's most famous, the frost "on the punkin." There are tributes to William McKinley and Abraham Lincoln, to Tennyson, Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Joel Chandler Harris. Famous characters 'Little Orphant Annie' and 'The Raggedy Man' are here; Puck makes an appearance "under a low crescent moon" in a poem of his own, as do Pan, Santa Claus, pixies, and goblins in others. Odes to boyhood best friends abound. People lived on closer terms with death in Riley's time, and, appropriately, a number of the poems address the subject, all of which express either blissful faith in the afterlife or sadness for the living left behind.

Riley was endlessly inventive within the limited sphere of his talent, or, perhaps, within the limitations he purposefully set upon it. Oddly, there are relatively few poems celebrating romantic love and marriage. Riley, who never married, apparently held the adult world and women in particular in no little suspicion. In his poetry, eligible women are generally kept at what Riley must have felt was a safe distance, though there are numerous tributes to mothers, aunts, sisters, and little girls - even stepmothers are embraced lovingly. But when Riley wrote about single women and imagined wives, his poetic vision generally darkened.

In 'The Werewife,' the volume's 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci,' Riley portrays the speaker's "fluttering, moth - winged soul" helplessly caught and mesmerized by his wife, a white - skinned, red - cheeked seductress who is also a murderous vampire.In 'The Mad Lover,' the narrator lives in a state of grim emotional paralysis after falling in love with 'Miriam Wayne,' though whether "fate" or Miriam herself is the cause of the "evil" and the lover's madness is not made clear. In 'Oh, Her Beauty,' the poet sings the praises his beloved's transcendent loveliness, but the last lines find him on his knees in thanks to God for revealing her spiritual ugliness at the eleventh hour.The plucky woman in 'Her Choice' is asked by her lover to chose his "love or hate," and she chooses "your hate, my dear!"The cuckolded man in 'The Lovely Husband' fans his wife and cold creams her face upon command, ignores her plucky unfaithfulness, and is every way a "handy hubby" and "lovey - dovey" until he cheerfully takes a shot gun and shoots her. The lover of the imprisoned killer in 'Life Sentence' is "false, while he was true," "the mistress of all siren arts," and "the poor soulless heroine of a hundred hearts!"

Riley and Carl Sandburg were kindred souls; admirers of Sandburg will find that Sandburg's work was partially a progression of Riley's.Both poets' verse is filled with anecdotes, homey bits of wisdom, funny stories, songs, folk truisms, and legendary characters.Riley's poems are snippets of life, fireside tales, and reflections; unlike Sandburg, politics are occasionally touched upon but never the pivotal focus in Riley's work.

How readers react to John Whitcomb Riley will depend on how they respond to the overtly sentimental and the character of the times in which he wrote, for these poems effortlessly evoke it.Though warmly sentimental, Riley was also bright and witty and full of spark, a dreamy, reflective, pre- urban poet of the small town and the home, of the sun porch and the rocking chair, of back fence gossip and street corner news, and of the American dream as it was conceived in his era.Potential readers may think themselves too sophisticated, cynical, or highbrow to enjoy the happily middlebrow works of James Whitcomb Riley. But such readers may be pleasantly surprised at how completely they find themselves immersed in Riley's detailed, frequently timeless, invigorating, and ingenious work. Despite its overall simplicity, Riley's work comfortably rests within the grander tradition of American literature, and makes for visionary reading in its own unique, whimsical manner. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
Rich selection of verses by the famous "Hoosier poet," invoking the people and places of rural Indiana, include such favorites as "The Raggedy Man," "When the Frost Is on the Punkin’," "Little Orphant Annie," and "An Old Sweetheart of Mine." Filled with the nostalgia, warmth, color and picturesque Hoosier dialect that made Riley one of the most popular American poets.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

grandmother of 95 loved it
my husbands grandmother who is 95 loved this book though she wondered why i paid more than the price that was on the book originally ! hey it was a deal! she just loved the memories!book was in great shape and arrived quickly that is a good thing when you are shopping for a 95 year old! ... Read more

Product Description
Afterwhiles is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by James Whitcomb Riley is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of James Whitcomb Riley then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subtitle: In Ten Volumes, Including Poems and Prose Sketches, Many of Which Have Not Heretofore Been Published; an Authentic Biography, an Elaborate Index and Numerous Illustrations in Color From Paintings by Howard Chandler Christy and Ethel Franklin Betts; Volume: 1; Original Published by: Harper in 1916 in 310 pages; Subjects: History / General; Literary Collections / General; Literary Collections / American / General; Literary Criticism / American / General; Literary Criticism / Poetry; Poetry / General; Poetry / American / General; ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Alex B
The Kindle version of this item is not searchable.You have to slog through the electronic pages to find the poem you want.Not very useful.Would be a better deal, even at a higher price, if searchable, or if you could jump to a poem from the list at the beginning.Other than that, the content is outstanding - though FD, I am a relative and favorably biased.

complete works of james whitcomb riley
this is a wonderful read especially "When the frost is on the punkin" and "the Ragedy man" ... Read more

Product Description
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY--A SKETCH
A BACKWARD LOOK
PHILIPER FLASH
THE SAME OLD STORY
TO A BOY WHISTLING
AN OLD FRIEND
WHAT SMITH KNEW ABOUT FARMING
A POET'S WOOING
MAN'S DEVOTION
A BALLAD
THE OLD TIMES WERE THE BEST
A SUMMER AFTERNOON
AT LAST
FARMER WHIPPLE--BACHELOR
MY JOLLY FRIEND'S SECRET
THE SPEEDING OF THE KING'S SPITE
JOB WORK
PRIVATE THEATRICAL
PLAIN SERMONS
"TRADIN' JOE"
DOT LEEDLE BOY
I SMOKE MY PIPE
RED RIDING HOOD
IF I KNEW WHAT POETS KNOW
AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE
SQUIRE HAWKINS'S STORY
A COUNTRY PATHWAY
THE OLD GUITAR
"FRIDAY AFTERNOON"
"JOHNSON'S BOY"
HER BEAUTIFUL HANDS
NATURAL PERVERSITIES
THE SILENT VICTORS
SCRAPS
AUGUST
DEAD IN SIGHT OF FAME
IN THE DARK
THE IRON HORSE
DEAD LEAVES
OVER THE EYES OF GLADNESS
ONLY A DREAM
OUR LlTTLE GIRL
THE FUNNY LITTLE FELLOW
SONG OF THE NEW YEAR
A LETTER TO A FRIEND
LINES FOR AN ALBUM
TO ANNIE
FAME
AN EMPTY NEST
MY FATHER'S HALLS
THE HARP OF THE MINSTREL
HONEY DRIPPING FROM THE COMB
JOHN WALSH
ORLIE WILDE
THAT OTHER MAUDE MULLER
A MAN OF MANY PARTS
THE FROG
DEAD SELVES
A DREAM OF LONG AGO
CRAQUEODOOM
JUNE
WASH LOWRY'S REMINISCENCE
THE ANCIENT PRINTERMAN
PRIOR TO MISS BELLE'S APPEARANCE
WHEN MOTHER COMBED MY HAIR
A WRANGDILLION
GEORGE MULLEN'S CONFESSION
"TIRED OUT"
HARLIE
SAY SOMETHING TO ME
LEONAINIE
A TEST OF LOVE
FATHER WILLIAM
WHAT THE WIND SAID
MORTON
AN AUTUMNAL EXTRAVAGANZA
THE ROSE
THE MERMAN
THE RAINY MORNING
WE ARE NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN WE SMILE
A SUMMER SUNRISE
DAS KRIST KINDEL
AN OLD YEAR'S ADDRESS
A NEW YEAR S PLAINT
LUTHER BENSON
DREAM
WHEN EVENING SHADOWS FALL
YLLADMAR
A FANTASY
A DREAM
DREAMER, SAY
BRYANT
BABYHOOD
LIBERTY
TOM VAN ARDEN

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY--A SKETCH


On Sunday morning, October seventh, 1849, Reuben A. Riley and his
wife, Elizabeth Marine Riley, rejoiced over the birth of their
second son.They called him James Whitcomb.This was in a shady
little street in the shady little town of Greenfield, which is in
the county of Hancock and the state of Indiana.The young James
found a brother and a sister waiting to greet him--John Andrew
and Martha Celestia, and afterward came Elva May--Mrs. Henry
Eitel-- Alexander Humbolt and Mary Elizabeth, who, of all, alone
lives to see this collection of her brother's poems.

James Whitcomb was a slender lad, with corn-silk hair and wide
blue eyes.He was shy and timid, not strong physically, dreading
the cold of winter, and avoiding the rougher sports of his
playmates.And yet he was full of the spirit of youth, a spirit
that manifested itself in the performance of many ingenious
pranks.His every-day life was that of the average boy in the
average country town of that day, but his home influences were
exceptional.His father, who became a captain of cavalry in the
Civil War, was a lawyer of ability and an orator of more than
local distinction.His mother was a woman of rare strength of
character combined with deep sympathy and a clear understanding.
Together, they made home a place to remember with thankful heart.

When James was twenty years old, the death of his mother made a
profound impression on him, an impression that has influenced
much of his verse and has remained with him always.

At an early age he was sent to school and, "then sent back
again," to use his own words.He was restive under what he
called the "iron discipline."A number of years ago, he spoke
of these early educational beginnings in phrases so picturesque
and so characteristic that they are quoted in full:

"My first teacher was a little old woman, rosy and roly-poly, who
looked as though she might have just come tumbling out of a fairy
story, so lovable was she and so jolly and so amiable.She kept
school in her little Dame-Trot kind of dwelling of three rooms,
with a porch in the rear, like a bracket on the wall, which was
part of the play-ground of her 'scholars,'--for in those days
pupils were called 'scholars' by their affectionate teachers.
... Read more

Product Description
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more

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Including Poems And Prose Sketches, Many Of Which Have Not Heretofore Been Published; An Authentic Biography, An Elaborate Index And Numerous Illustrations In Color From Paintings By Howard Chandler Christy And Ethel Franklin Betts. In Ten Volumes. ... Read more

Product Description
Few literary figures have achieved the fame of James Whitcomb Riley, the most popular poet in America at the end of the 19th century--the height of his career.Legends and rumors either elevate Riley as a hero who gave Hoosiers pride of place, or denigrate him as a drunken author of Victorian doggerel.In this first serious modern biography of Riley, Van Allen sifts facts from fiction to paint the truest portrait of this controversial poet. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Hoosier Daddy
There was a time when I thought I was the last American still reading James Whitcomb Riley's poetry.Wrong, of course, and eventually I stumbled upon Elizabeth J. Van Allen's biography of the man.From knowing practically nothing of him, other than William Lyon Phelps' introductory remarks in one of Riley's anthologies, I've come to better understand him through Van Allen's detailed look at the poet.

Her biography is heavily footnoted in the modern way and is somewhat dry reading.The latter is probably partly due to the subject matter--unlike bios of the great and famous who wrestled with huge decisions in dramatic circumstances, Riley led a relatively subdued life.She also takes a reasonably even-handed view of his life and doings, both exposing Riley's feet of clay (alcoholism, dilatory treatment of his fiancees and ultimate hard-hearted indifference, and his endless melodramatic outbursts over his life's circumstances) and the sources of his popularity first with Hoosiers, then the rest of America.

Van Allen is at pains to establish that Riley lived during a transitional time in America, from the sturdy yeoman farmer era to a progressive, industrialized and increasingly centralized existence, an unsettling time in which many Americans looked back and pondered what they were losing.Almost too much so, as her repeated editorial comments on the changes in sexuality, class and caste, middle class expectations, etc. in Riley's day become almost incessant.

And though she is surely correct that Riley chose a certain point of view in his poetry while ignoring the rest--the uplifting over the darkness of life--she goes to excess to claim Riley wrote of a fictive past.I doubt his peers were entirely misled when they praised Riley for putting an accurate finger on America's past pulse.

Van Allen does a good job in tracing Riley's rise in the world, dips and all, and in demonstrating the high regard in which many of the highest elite of literary society held him.And how the mighty are fallen!She quotes Riley as wondering if future generations would esteem him so well.He was right to wonder, as his star which once outshone Mark Twain's has dwindled to almost nothing.Twain meanwhile has permanently entered the pantheon of great American writers.

This book might have benefited a bit from a more sympathetic view of Riley and his time, but Van Allen's take on the poet through her late 20th century trappings is preferable to a partisan defense.

You don't need to have lived in the 19th century to feel what Riley must have felt when he wrote the anguished poem "We Must Get Home."Van Allen's revealing book helps us better understand this man's sentiment and poetry.

An alternative
The Kirkus review of James Whitcomb Riley: A Life is hardly a fair one.It criticizes the book because of two opinions of the reviewer that clearly the author had no hope of changing:

1.The facts about Riley are not asinteresting as the myths about his life.

2. He was not the author ofgreat literature.

It is, of course, the duty of the serious biographerto present the truest picture possible of the life of the biography'ssubject.To this end, Elizabeth Van Allen has done a prodigious amount ofresearch in documents relating to the life of Riley.The result is ascholarly but readable and interesting book.She rightly puts to rest themyths about the poet, intriguing though they may be.Furthermore, as ahistorian, Van Allen discusses the significance of Riley's poetry but doesnot attempt to defend it as outstanding literature.

Certainly, thebiography of Riley will be most popular in Indiana where he is stillrevered by many, but it also will be of interest to anyone who isinterested in American cultural history.In presenting the context forRiley's early years, the author paints a clear picture of life in theMidwest in the second half of the 19th century.As Riley rises to nationalfame, the reader learns of the role of newspapers as a purveyor ofliterature in the late 19th century, the national importance of regionalliterature in that century, and the important role of the national lecturecircuit as mass entertainment of the period.

As an immensely popularentertainer on platforms throughout the nation and later through themarketing efforts of his publisher and of Riley himself, before movies,radio, television, or rock and roll, Riley was the 19th century precursorof the 20th century pop culture celebrity.This fact alone makes him afigure worth reading about and the author's authoritative and entertainingbook worth buying.

Another evaluation of the book that is recommendedis the review by Rich Gotshall in the Indianapolis Star issue of Sunday,November 7, 1999. ... Read more

Product Description
The Complete Works Of James Whitcomb Riley - In Ten Volumes, Including Poems And Prose Sketches, Many Of Which Have Not Heretofore Been Published - An Authentic Biography, An Elaborate Index And Numerous Illustrations In Color From Paintings By Howard Chandler Christy And Ethel Franklin Betts ... Read more