American poet James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), often called the "People's Laureate" or the "Hoosier Poet," established a reputation for dialect poetry designed for recitation and easy reading.

James Whitcomb Riley was born on Oct. 7, 1849, in Greenfield, Ind. His father, a successful small-town lawyer, allowed him to shape his education by instinct rather than formal precedents. Oratory, drama, painting, and music took James's earliest attention. He idolized Charles Dickens. Poets Robert Burns, for dialect verse, and Henry Longfellow, for moral precepts, were his models. Young Riley wrote voluminously and saved every scrap, particularly the local-color sketches, incorporating anecdotes he heard from the country people around the courthouse. His musical ear was good; he played the violin, guitar, and banjo. His verbal ear was even better.

At the age of 16 Riley left school to become a "house, sign, and ornamental painter," wandering around Indiana. He read law for a while but took to the road with a traveling medicine man from whose wagon he learned to entertain the public with recitations in dialect. When he returned to Greenfield, he started a career in journalism, beginning with the local paper and expanding his horizons gradually. At one time he was local editor of the Anderson Democrat.

The Indianapolis Journal's invitation to join its staff was the door to success. Riley published his dialect poems under the name "Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone," and by 1883 the demand was enough to issue a pamphlet edition. Calling his first collection The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems, he did not need a public-opinion poll to tell him he had found his métier. He sold more than half a million copies of this book, followed it with 40 more books before his death, and on platforms across the country entertained audiences with homely philosophy and dramatic monologues. Old-Fashioned Roses (London, 1888) captured an English audience. Pipes o' Pan at Zekesbury (1888), Rhymes of Childhood (1890), and Here at Home (1893) expanded his American reputation.

Riley's attractions were personal, not cerebral. His win-some nature was contagious in a public gathering, and he was determined to give his listener "simple sentiments that come from the heart." His poems were never burdened with ideas, complexities, ambiguities. He invented a whole gallery of Hoosiers; Riley was the first to admit that they spoke patent clichés in a dialect such as no real Hoosier ever spoke. At his best, he captured a tranquil America, wholesome, eccentric, sentimental, bucolic. "The Raggedy Man," "Little Orphant Annie," and "Nine Little Goblins" attest to his vitality within his limited range. He died on July 22, 1916.

Further Reading

The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley (6 vols., 1913) was edited by Edmund H. Eitel, and Letters of James Whitcomb Riley (1930) by William Lyon Phelps. Two biographical studies incorporate criticism with reminiscence: Jeannette Covert Nolan, James Whitcomb Riley (1941), and Richard Crowder, Those Innocent Years: The Legacy and Inheritance of a Hero of the Victorian Era, James Whitcomb Riley (1957). See also Marcus Dickey, The Youth of James Whitcomb Riley (1919).

For more information on James Whitcomb Riley, visit Britannica.com.

Riley, James Whitcomb (1849–1916), American poet. During his lifetime, Riley enjoyed enormous popularity. Known as ‘The Hoosier Poet’ or ‘the people's poet’, he drew material from Midwestern literature, fairy tales, and speech patterns. His verses, written in folk dialect, expressed the myth of rural America, with phrases such as ‘When the frost is on the punkin’ and ‘the old swimin'‐hole’. Riley's ‘Raggedy Man’ inspired Johnny Gruelle's Raggedy Ann and Andy books. His most enduring creation, ‘Little Orphan Annie’—‘the Gobble‐uns'll git you | Ef you | Don't | Watch | Out’—became part of childhood folklore and the name of a classic comic strip (the source of the Broadway musical Annie).

Bibliography

• Morrow, Barbara Olenyik, From Ben‐Hur to Sister Carrie: Remembering the Lives and Works of Five Indiana Authors (1995).
• Revell, Peter, James Whitcomb Riley (1970).

— Anita Silvey

1849–1916, American poet, b. Greenfield, Ind., known as the Hoosier poet. He was at various times a traveling actor, a sign painter, and a newspaperman. Under the name “Benj. F. Johnson of Boone” he began to write verse in the Hoosier dialect for the Indianapolis Journal in 1875, selections first collected in “The Old Swimmin'-Hole” and 'Leven More Poems (1883). Riley's verse was popular because of its humor, pathos, simplicity, and sentimentality. Especially well-known are his children's poems such as “Little Orphant Annie” and “The Runaway Boy.” Among the collections of his verse are Rhymes of Childhood (1890) and Knee Deep in June (1912).

Bibliography

See biography by M. Dickey (Youth, 1919; Maturity, 1922); study by P. Revell (1970).

(1849-1916)

1883	The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'Leven More Poems. The Indiana poet's first book is a collection of country verse in Hoosier dialect originally published in the Indianapolis Journal under the name "Benj. F. Johnson," of Boone. The popular collection contains some of his most celebrated poems, including "When the Frost Is on the Punkin" and the title poem; it also introduces Riley's nostalgic themes, which make him the most famous and financially successful poet of the time.
1885	"Little Orphant Annie." One of Riley's most popular poems concerns an orphan girl who tells ghost stories about "gobble-uns" who "gits you ef you Don't Watch Out!"
1899	Riley Child-Rhymes. Riley's collection includes one of his most popular poems, "Little Orphant Annie."

Quotes:

"It doesn't pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoke, Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he'll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn't say."

"Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has these."

"The most essential factor is persistence -- the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come."

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