17 Riley Bio Williams

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT
by Thomas Earl Williams with primary illustrations by Katherine Kuonen and the great assistance of Robert Tinsley with Riley artifacts, Copyright, 1997, Thomas Earl Williams

Jedge is good at argyin' -No mistake in that!

Most folks 'at takles him He'll skin 'ern like a cat!

You see, the Jedge is read up, And b'en in politics,

Hand-in-glove, you might say, Sence back in '56.

Elected to the Shunif, first, Then elected Clerk;

And buckled down to work; Practised three or four terms, Then he run for jedge ‑

Speechified a little 'round And went in like a wedge!

From the author's Ora Myers glass negative collection of Hancock County, Indiana subjects

The first newspaper Riley contributed to was The REPUBLICAN. This was a newspaper begun by T. B. Deems about 1870 in Greenfield, Indiana, and survived for approximately three months. No copy of this newspaper survives.

For a far longer period Riley wrote for The Greenfield COMMERCIAL. The COMMERCIAL was begun by Amos C. Beeson in 1867. In 1870, Beeson sold this Pro-Republican newspaper to Lionel E. Rumrill who terminated it in December, 1872. Riley published most poetry in the Greenfield

COMMERCIAL anonymously. One poem was _.a spoof of a Bret Harte style and revolved around a girlfriend of Riley's, Lucy Atkinson. Riley called on her as did a young jewelry salesman of Greenfield. Riley and the jewelry salesman did not consider themselves rivals for the attention of Lucy because neither saw each other at Lucy's home. One day, Lucy sent Riley a note to come to her home at six o'clock p.m. that evening. Riley did so but somewhat later than six. When Riley arrived, he saw Lucy in a bridal dress with happy friends around in an obvious marriage party. A two-horse carriage was tied at the gate ready to take the married couple off. The woman was Lucy. Riley had been invited to a surprise wedding of his girlfriend to another man.

To commemorate this occasion, Riley wrote a poem in the style of Bret Harte's "Truthful James." It was published in The Greenfield COMMERCIAL on January 14, 1871 in "The Poet's Corner" section of that newspaper. The name of the poet was listed as Brat Heart.

Of late I'm becoming persuaded to smile At some things turning out, once-in-awhile; In the way that they do! I'll aim to explain, In order to make my meaning more plain, In the following crude vernacular strain:

"Drawing me on! Now look here, Dick Show me the girl that can do that trick Before you venture on calling me 'sick."! It's all set up - she wants to tell

Me "something" to-night - now look here - well -I'm going to cut her - I want you to see How much more she thinks of me Than of that damned jeweler - how'll that be?" "Be? - mighty bad, for a woman to fix And dress and get ready by half-past six, Don't play off on her. John! If you can,

Some other time you can work this plan! And besides that you want to know What she wants by begging you so To come there early. If I were you

I'd marry that woman, that's what I'd do, As certain as one and one make two! Or ain't you much on the marry now? Well, she's a mighty fat take anyhow!"

"All right, John, my bully old brick! Play it right fine, and talk mighty slick, Good night, success to you!"

"Not back a'ready! Why, what's up now? Going to go back on it? What's the row? Are you going crazy - Ouch! look here, say, Don't step on my corns in that lubberly way! You're the cussedest fool 'at I've seen today!"

"Well, I reckon I am! Say, Dick, look here -Come here to the window and it will appear To you in a stronger light - I'm a fool,

And a damned one too! Oh, I'm perfectly cool! I mostly resemble what's most like a mule. Don' you see 'em turning the corner there? See those carriages? That with the pair Of grays hitched to it? The happy twain Who sit inside. it is very plain,

At some things turning out once-in-awhile, In the way that they do. I've tried to explain, In order to make my meaning more plain, In what some may term a "sarcastic vein."

Toward its last days Riley was the COMMERCIAL's local editor, solicitor and writer of advertisements. He filled the literary department with poetry and astonished the editor and public as well with advertisements like the following:

As he drove in town one Christmas day, 'Of all the gifts there's none that suits

Shall I buy my winter ware? And a voice answered, There! At the store of Hart and Thayer, Where

A year and half after his mother's death, Riley sent a poem to his brother John, then living in Indianapolis, to see if his brother could get it published. John was able to do so at the Indianapolis Saturday MIRROR but only after recopying because Riley's penmanship was very bad. Riley sent this poem to his brother on February 9th and awaited expectantly until the first, "Man's Devotion," was published on March 30th. Riley used the pen name Jay Whit but the newspaper mistakenly printed it as "Jay White."

Again Riley sent poetry in. Riley drove himself crazy after sending "A Ballad" to the Mirror. He wrote his brother "This suspense is terrible! -daily I may be seen with solemn expression following the mail-bag from the depot, as though' it were some dear-little-fat-corps of a relative who had perhaps remember me in his will- but alas!... "

When the poem "A Ballad" was finally published, it was edited and Riley was heartsick. Prepositions and articles were changed. Riley saw these as insults to the "ballad style." "It hurts me more that the poem was my favorite, and I had built an airy castle for it!" he said.

Riley's early contributions to this newspaper were thus: 1872: March 30, "Man's Devotion" by Jay White (sic); April 13, "A Mockery" by Jay Whit; "Flames and Ashes" by Jay Whit; May 11, "A Ballad" anonymous; May 25, "Johnny" by Jay Whit.

After the Greenfield COMMERCIAL ceased operation, many of Riley's
writings then appeared in the older Greenfield newspaper, The Hancock
DEMOCRAT. The reason was one of his best loafing buddies was Almon
Keefer, several years his elder, but a compositor at that newspaper. Keefer
had been in Riley's father's Civil War unit and was a bachelor himself. The
Hancock DEMOCRAT is a great source of information about the writings
and career of James Whitcomb Riley. This is the newspaper, for example,
which published Riley's obituary of Nellie Millikan Cooley and his poetry
to her. An Editor of the DEMOCRAT, John Mitchell, was also a close Riley
friend and companionable social alcoholic with an arrest for public intoxi‑
cation in Greenfield close to the time of Riley's own in his younger years.
Another of the first newspapers publishing Riley poetry was the
Greenfield NEWS. Riley once said when he covered an event for the
NEWS, it became a "Hartpence local." This referred to William Hartpence,

a Civil War veteran who returned to Greenfield in December, 1874, purchased the plant of the Greenfield NEWS, and published it as a Republican weekly newspaper to which Riley contributed. The Greenfield NEWS began in 1874 under the ownership of Will T. Walker and Lionel E. Rumrill. A year later Walter Hartpence purchased the newspaper and continued it until the NEWS ceased publication in the Spring, 1875. Riley felt responsible since he was one of the few who contributed to the doomed

Riley's efforts at the Greenfield NEWS were recounted by William Hartpence as follows: "When I took possession of the NEWS, Riley was contributing a serial bit of fiction, entitled "Babie McDowell." This I continued for some weeks, when needing space for increased advertising, by my direction, Riley dexterously "killed" his principal characters and ended the story. I preserved the file of the NEWS very carefully and they are neatly bound in first-calls style in marbled board full size of page. They show Riley's name at the head of the local department of the paper. This volume is now more carefully than ever preserved by my son. Bert E. Hartpence, Harrison, Ohio.

My knowledge of James Whitcomb Riley began in 1861 when I was a printer in the Hancock DEMOCRAT office, that was at that time housed in a little brick annex on the west side of the old courthouse in Greenfield. "Jim" as everybody called him until he came into fame, was then a yellow-haired, freckled faced boy of the normal type, with a predilection for chewing tobacco, which, I think, he inherited from his father, Reuben A. Riley."

The NEWS he was writing for part time and without pay folded in the Spring 1875. Riley celebrated the event by joining company with a friend, Oliver Moore, to make a circuit as "Delineator and Caricaturist" shortly afterward. This attempt to start an entertainment career, bombed as otherwise related.

As an older man, Riley recalled his first serious journalistic writing as occurring after his return from the "medicine show" escape from his hometown. The account appears in the Biographical Edition of his poetry and was ostensibly edited by his nephew, Edmund Eitel:

"...he became the local editor of his home paper (The Greenfield NEWS) and in a few months "strangled the little thing into a change of ownership." The new proprietor transferred him to the literary department and the latter, not knowing what else to put in the space allotted him, filled it with verse. But there was not room in his department for all he produced, so he began,

timidly, to offer his poetic wares in foreign markets. The editor of The Indianapolis MIRROR accepted two or three shorter verses but in doing so suggested that in the future he try prose. Being but a humble beginner, Riley harkened to the advice, whereupon the editor made a further suggestion; this time that he try poetry again. The "Danbury (Connecticut) NEWS," then at the height of its humorous reputation, accepted a contribution shortly after "The MIRROR" episode and Mr. McGeechy, its managing editor, wrote the young poet a graceful note of congratulation. Commenting on these perilous times, Mr. Riley once wrote, "It is strange how little a thing sometimes makes or unmakes a fellow. In these dark days I should have been content with the twinkle of the tiniest star, but even this light was withheld from me. Just then came the letter from McGeechy; and about the same time, arrived my first check, a payment from "Hearth and Home" for a contribution called "A Destiny" (now "A Dreamer in A Child World"). The letter was signed, 'Editor' and unless sent by an assistant it must have come from Ik Marvel himself, God bless him! I thought my fortune made. Almost immediately I sent off another contribution, whereupon to my dismay came this reply: 'The management has decided to discontinue the publication and hopes that you will find a market for your worthy work elsewhere.' Then followed dark days indeed, until finally, inspired by my old teacher and comrade, Captain Lee 0. Harris, 1 sent some of my poems to Longfellow, who replied in his kind and gentle manner with the substantial encouragement for which I had long thirsted."

Riley's first full-time employment came at Anderson, Indiana when Riley was hired by the Anderson DEMOCRAT. This tour ended Riley's wandering days about Indiana as a painter and member of the Graphics or with its members. In the Anderson DEMOCRAT of April, 1877, a box in the newspaper stated the following:

"It is our endeavor to serve the best interest of our patrons, and with this in view, we have secured the services of Mr. J. W. Riley, who has attained quite a reputation as a poet and writer. His productions have already attracted the attention of such men as Longfellow, Whittier, Trowbridge and many other notables; and being convinced of the high order of his talent in that direction, we believe we not only benefit ourselves and patrons by the acquisition of his services, but that he is also supplied with a congenial position, and one in which he will develop the highest attributes of his nature. Feeling that we have already the hearty endorsement of a kindly public, we leave

In making my salam to the Anderson public, I desire first to extend my warmest thanks to those who have interested themselves in my behalf, and whose kindly influence has assisted me to an office I will ever feel pleasure in occupying. And in the fulfillment of the duties that devolve upon me, it shall be my warmest endeavor to merit the trust and confidence that has been so generously relegated. That the position is one that is fraught with a thousand trials and vexations, shall not deter me from the steadfast purpose of right and justice; and while I shall at all times exercise the lighter attributes which go to make up the interest of a weekly, it shall be my care, as well, to wend away all petty slurs that shake the growth of dignity, and in fact, to nurture jealously the character of the paper, and assist in my humble way in giving to its individuality the stamp which "bears without abuse the grand old name of gentleman." Treating the kindly indulgence of the public for any discrepancy of inexperience, I am, Very truly,

At the Anderson DEMOCRAT, Riley took charge of the advertising end of the paper:

soliciting, make-up, proofreading, reporting of locals, starting at eight dollars a week. Soon he began inserting his own poetry such as his parody of the Whittier poem that Riley called "The Other Maud Muller," "A Man of Many Parts," "The Frog" and a parody of the Coleridge poem, "The Ancient Mariner" that Riley called "The Ancient Printerman," "Craqueodoom" in the style of Joseph Drake's "The Culprit Fay," and a parody of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" poem of the same name called "Father William." I suppose "Leonainie" is in this same line of imitation pieces for apprenticeship into a greater poetry.

Newspapers did not pay for poetry when Riley first began to hope for monetary rewards from his writing. The newspapers did pay for prose pieces. To accommodate both his need for money and his interest in poetry,

Elijah B. Martindale. Propriet,w 01the Indianapolis JOURNAL who offered Riley employment even after his "Leonainie" disgrace and public intoxication arrest record, thus saving him from poverty and despair.

Riley wrote prose pieces but included poetry within them so that he did in fact get paid.

From the start through advertising rhymes, doggerels and occasional more serious poetry, James Whitcomb Riley came to sharpen his poetic skills as a newspaper contributor and poet. Although there are original poems published in many, many newspapers throughout the country, three are newspapers of particular significance. Each was a major publisher of original Riley poetry. Riley's longstanding career was however with only one of these newspapers, the Indianapolis JOURNAL.

How did Riley become a newspaper poet and not simply a journalist? From the start he was hired on because of his poetic bent.

Of all the people who gave James Whitcomb Riley a start in his writing career none was more helpful than Judge Elijah B. Martindale. He should be credited with initially giving Riley the chance to write poetry regularly for newspapers. The Judge gave Riley employment at The Indianapolis JOURNAL, which would be about the only truly steady job Riley ever had. The offer of this job literally snatched Riley out of a period of great despair and drunkenness. Riley actually started at the JOURNAL in November, 1879 after returning from a stint accompanying the temperance lecturer, Luther Benson, through a circuit in Northern Indiana. Riley started out at the JOURNAL at a regular weekly salary of twenty-five dollars. Riley contributed to the JOURNAL earlier but only sporadically. The editor said Riley "would stamp up and down our reportorial rooms moaning for the sight of sunflowers." Riley would get homesick and leave a note on the editor's desk, "Going down home for a day or two to smoke my segyar." Then he was simply gone.

The only picture I have seen of Judge Martindale has him posed as Napoleon with his right hand thrust inside his coat. He was a heavy man with receding hairline and a huge brushlike mustache with its ends curled as if by wax below the line of his mouth. His appearance is very self-assured and his eyes look like those of a man who can see through steel. I have not seen a picture of him after he filed personal bankruptcy in the later 1870's, having previously transferred the JOURNAL and other major assets to this children. Here was a man who almost literally took Indianapolis as a pup and tamed it during the post-Civil War period, giving it the habits that continue now in its maturity.

Judge Martindale grew up near Shirley, Indiana, although he was born in the country in Wayne County August 22, 1828. His father was a pioneer

preacher of the Christian Church and moved to a country farm near Shirley when the Judge was four. Like so many persons who amounted to something that 1 have found in Hoosier history, he learned industry by living and working on a family farm. He was the tenth of fifteen children. His education was the scanty one of the period with only brief seminary attendances in the dead of winter. At sixteen, in 1844, he decided to become a saddler and was apprenticed to learn to make horse saddles which took him to age twenty or

While he had been a saddler apprentice, he had also become a great reader and particularly found himself most interested in the law. In his early twenties he decided to become a lawyer, moved to New Castle, and hung out a shingle. He also married there and would eventually be the father of ten children. For twelve years he practiced law in our neighbor county seat. For one term he was a Prosecuting Attorney but he became of interest to us, as a James Whitcomb Riley influence, in 1861 when he was appointed the Judge for Hancock County. Here he came to know of the Riley family of Greenfield. Reuben Riley, the poet's father, had been a very active member of the Greenfield bar. The Judge's position was more technically Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Hancock, Henry, Randolph, Delaware, and Wayne Counties which was all one big venue in those days. This brief stint - he was judge only a year - earned him the title Judge ever after. He moved to Indianapolis in 1862 and began a legal practice there.

From the start, the Judge took Indianapolis on as a development project. Cattycornered from the City-County Bldg is the Martindale "Block" or building, the northeast corner of Market and Pennsylvania Streets, which he had built and he also was a prime mover of the platting of most of Indianapolis of that period so that lots could be sold on easy terms for new settlers to move there. He represented many commercial and manufacturing interests and always encouraged them to expand and grow to build up our Hoosier capital. He was a visionary who saw the prime city of Indiana as needing not just employment opportunities and homes of brick and wood but also a poet of the love of the home. This seems why he brought James Whitcomb Riley to Indianapolis -to nourish the heart and soul of his adopted city.

In 1876, the Judge bought the Indianapolis JOURNAL, then the leading Republican newspaper in the state. He managed this newspaper for only a four year period and sold it on the eve of the political campaign of 1880 after a personal bankruptcy had caused him great distress. His period of owner‑

ship and that of his children into whose name the JOURNAL was placed for "safekeeping," was, however, critical in the life of James Whitcomb Riley.

During the Judge's first year as owner of the JOURNAL he happened to come to Greenfield, a town he knew well, for the funeral of a young lawyer, Hamilton Dunbar, who had been a "star comer" of his court when he had been judge. It was September, and the meeting would prove to be one of the most important dates in Riley history.

The tragically dead young lawyer, Hamilton Dunbar, had been a schoolmate and good friend to James Whitcomb Riley and Riley had written a poem, "Dead in the Sight of Fame" which Riley read at a meeting of the Greenfield bar honoring the memory of Hamilton Dunbar. Judge Martindale was very impressed by Riley's poem. A week later, the Judge wrote to ask Riley to come to Indianapolis to talk to him. Riley did not do so, but he did send the Judge some poems that Riley offered the Judge's newspaper to publish.

The next February, the Judge sent Riley $10 for the poems and repeated his invitation for Riley to come see him, writing a letter as follows:

I want to thank you for the article and poem sent The JOURNAL. I am sure you have a future and will help with The JOURNAL to make it whatever your application and industry deserves. I hope you will call on me when you are in the city. I may be able to make some suggestions and afford you encouragement. I like to help young men who help themselves.

The Judge and his newspaper, the JOURNAL, were to remove Riley from his home in Greenfield to Indianapolis at the most bitter time in Riley's life when the only other course which was probably open to Riley was that of becoming an unemployed Greenfield town drunk.

Of the Judge's later life, little is important to us in following the life of James Whitcomb Riley. The Judge went on to establish and become the owner of a major Indianapolis industry, the Atlas Works, a foundry and

machine factory, and was active in many social and public causes until his death.

The first time Riley used his full name for a poem was for a poem published in the Indianapolis JOURNAL of April 17, 1881 entitled "The Ripest Peach." When asked why he had used his full name then, he said there were many James Rileys in Indianapolis and he was tired of getting letters from their girls.

Although Riley was employed by the JOURNAL until 1888, he contributed poems long after that. The JOURNAL used

Riley told how he produced them. "I had a An illustration of a person I imagine as looking

peculiar position...My editor-in-chief was The "John Walker" series of poems from this era one of the most indulgent men in the world of Riley's poetic career seems to have been

did not, nothing was said. At first when called on for a certain thing by a certain time I grew apprehensive and nervous, but I soon solved the problem. I learned to keep a stack of poems and prose on hand, and when there was a big hold in the paper and the called for 'copy' I gave them all they wanted.

Riley was closely connected to the Indianapolis JOURNAL. The newspaper employed Riley and regularly published Riley poetry for many years from January 10, 1877 with "Song of the New Year," to December 29, 1901 with "To the Mother."

There is an example of the enthusiasm with which The JOURNAL published Riley poetry after he reached fame. The newspaper was literally willing to stop its presses to put in a Riley poem toward the end of his long period of contribution to that newspaper. James Whitcomb Riley had very deep feelings that caused him to write poetry under great inspiration and excitement.

Riley wrote the poem "Song of the Bullet" from his Lockerbie Street home when most Hoosiers, not so poetic or maybe inspired, were in bed. He

The managing editor of The Indianapolis JOURNAL, then Indiana's most prominent newspaper, Harry New, related that Riley brought the poem in at 10'o clock in the morning in great disarray and very excited. Riley said he had just written it and if The JOURNAL wanted to run it they could. The managing editor told the famous Hoosier Poet that the next day's newspaper had already been made up and he would give the poem very prominent treatment in the next issue. Riley replied that he would let The JOURNAL have the poem if they would publish it the next morning or not at all.

So great was the occasion of publishing anything from "The Hoosier Poet" that you can imagine what Indiana's most important newspaper did. It stopped the presses to print the poem as James Whitcomb Riley had asked. Since Riley has been dead for so many years it might be well to give his words as remembered by that editor as best he could recall, when Riley had brought in that poem. "I have done something good," he said. "I had gone to bed and to sleep. It came to me and woke me up. I got up and put it down. It is good. There it is. You may have it." When the Editor had said he couldn't possibly publish it in the next morning's newspaper since Riley had brought the poem in to him at 1 am, that's when Riley said publish it for the morning paper or not at all.

Thinking about it, the poem gives a view of war that the struggling country was trying to deal with.

The imagery and message of the poem combine to produce its powerful impact on the reader. The poem became very well known and was printed in many newspapers around the country.

It is simply not possible to say that Riley wrote for only the The Indianapolis JOURNAL. Riley was a journalistic "gadfly." He apparently was willing to write news, edit such material, garner advertising, and/or do any and everything else for a newspaper which published his poetry.

One finds him editing the Kokomo TRIBUNE "Home Department" in 1879 in order to secure for himself an organ to originally publish his seventeen "John C. Walker" poems of this era and other poetry. Following the "fame" from Leonainie, the John C. Walker poems were the next stepping

stone to Riley's rise in prominence as a poet. These poems, all of which were first published in the Kokomo TRIBUNE, were copied far and wide in the United States.

Great speculation arose. Who was this John C. Walker? In July, 1879, the Mishawaka ENTERPRISE published the following article directed to the

Kokomo TRIBUNE: "Will wage a year's subscription to the ENTERPRISE that your "'John C. Walker" whose charming little poems have been such a brilliant feature of your paper, is none other than J.W. Riley, Indiana's rising young poet, in disguise."

For the most part they were as entertaining as any poetry ever written. John C. Walker wrote verse that was "The Ginoine Ar-Tickle" which was the title of his poem in the "Home Department" of the Kokomo Saturday TRIBUNE of November 8, 1879.

Talkin' o' poetry, - there're few men yit 'Ats got the stuff biled down so's it'll pour Out sorgum-like, and keep a year and more -Jes' sweeter ever' time you tackle it! W'y all the jinglin' truck 'at has ben writ For twenty year and better is so pore You caint find no sap in it any more

'N you'd find juice in puff-balls! - AND I'D QUIT! What people wants is facts, I apperhend; And naked Natur is the thing to give Your writin' bottom, eh? And I contend 'At honest work is allus bound to live. Now thems my views; cause you kind reecommend Sich poetry as that from end to end.

Charles H. Philips, placed him in charge of his Kokomo TRIBUNE column, "Home Department."

James Whitcomb Riley knew Charles Philips, the eldest son of Theophilus C. Philips, owner and publisher of the Kokomo TRIBUNE from Riley's Graphics days of wandering about Indiana. Philips's father had been appointed postmaster of Kokomo by President Lincoln and was a staunch Republican as well as Editor and Owner of the Kokomo TRIBUNE. The famous John Walker Poems eventually were all published first in The Kokomo TRIBUNE. After the Leonainie incident, the next step in general public awareness of Riley came through the publication of his poetry and prose in the Kokomo TRIBUNE where Riley took employment as Editor of the TRIBUNE's Home Department in March 1879.

The Kokomo TRIBUNE, at this point in its history, was among the finest publications in the west and strived to duplicate the quality of "magazine" journalism. Many of the finest Hoosier writers contributed to it and it prided itself on having "sixty" literary contributors who were the finest writers in Indiana. "John C. Walker" soon took top honors as the finest of them all.

The first of Riley's poetry to the Kokomo TRIBUNE was after Riley's contribution of the "Edgar Allan Poe" hoax poem, "Leonainie," to the rival Kokomo DISPATCH. About a month after this publication, Riley sent to the Kokomo TRIBUNE his hoax of the hoax, called "Leoloony" contributed anonymously but published by the Kokomo TRIBUNE September 1, 1877. He also wrote an anonymous parody of "Leonainie" for the Indianapolis Saturday HERALD which was published September 1, 1877.

Not until January, did Riley begin his vast output of significant poetry sent to the Kokomo TRIBUNE. It began with Riley's tribute to Luther Benson, the temperance lecturer who had "pulled him out of his alcoholic bout" after the condemnation of Riley for pulling the Edgar Allan Poe hoax. Benson had literally rescued Riley from oblivion and the obscurity of being a public drunk. Within this time period had come Riley's firing from his job at the Anderson DEMOCRAT and his arrest for public intoxication in his hometown of Greenfield.

The beautiful kenotic poem "T.C. Philips" followed in July, and a tribute to a child of Kokomo named after the ill- fated poem, Leonainie, before the John C. Walker series of poems began. Occasional anonymous poems from the pen of James Whitcomb Riley were also published within the period 1879 and March 19th, 1881 when the last was printed. The most significant was a poem, "The Beetle," which was as widely reprinted in the national press as the John C. Walker poems.

The poem suffered a title change as it began a long career of re-publication and re-issuance and became known as the "Dusk Song." Its refrain is: "O'er garden blooms

James Whitcomb Riley's friend, Dan Paine, a critic for the Indianapolis News in August, 1879, wrote Riley, "That infernal Beetle has been booming and bumping about my ears all day. The poem is just crammed with subtle beauties. Do you know there is as much imagery and poetry in the work you have turned out this week as would suffice many a man, who

breaks into the magazines at a round price, for half a year. And you are doing it for nothing." From 1877: September 1, "Leoloony." to March 19, 1880, "Kate Kennedy Philips."

Some were telling Riley his poetry was too good to contribute to weekly papers, but the counsel of Myron Reed, Riley's spiritual mentor in matters of his alcoholism and life in general, was different. Reed encouraged Riley to "keep" as close as possible to the people of his age and time. They were to be the "balance" of his poetry. Reed insisted Riley stay attuned to the country people of the Hoosier state. Only by knowing his own people could Riley become acquainted with himself and the well-springs of his own poetics. Reed insisted Riley weigh his own life first and inform it with the life of those with whom he lived. Avoid at all costs gratifying your desire to live in the vanity of city literary life, Reed warned. In the meantime, the poems contributed to the Kokomo TRIBUNE were picked up on the newspaper exchanges and widely reprinted.

Riley occasionally used his own name in the "Home Department" columns as with his poem "Tired.

"Oh I am tired!" she sighed as her billowy Hair she unloosed in a torrent of gold

That rippled and fell o'er a figure as willowy, Graceful and fair as a goddess of old:

Over her jewels she flung herself drearily, Crumpled the laces that snowed on her breast, Crushed with her fingers the lily that wearily Clung in her hair like a dove in its nest.

From the author's Ora Myers glass negative collection of Hancock County. Indiana subjects

Drained the old kiss to the dregs of his doom. -And naught but that shadowy form in the mirror

Another newspaper publishing Riley poetry was The Indianapolis Saturday HERALD. This was the weekly newspaper which published "The Flying Islands of the Night" in the "Buzz Club" series, and Riley's "Poetic Gymnastics" series. The newspa‑

per accepted Riley poetry from an earlier period of time than The Indianapolis JOURNAL. Poetry in the HERALD began with a Jay Whit poem on June 26, 1875, "Red Riding-Hood" and ended on December 19, 1885 with "At Last Meeting."

James Whitcomb Riley was a writer in prose as well as a poet. Riley wrote news articles and editorials by the hundreds. Riley took newspaper assignments to report events like other staffers. There is a record of Riley's assignment to report on what he called a "wind fight" one time. This was an oratorical contest. Routine assignments continued during the days he was at the JOURNAL. Few of them are identified as Riley's work. Many

of his editorials were written for the Indianapolis JOURNAL, which we remember was the chief newspaper in Indiana. If such things mould public opinion or

express it tangentially if in no other way, Riley's writing had to be influen‑

Cover of Riley's first book, 'THE OLD SWIMMINI—HOLE," AND 'LEVEN MORE POEMS By Benj. F. Johnson of Boone, (James Whitcomb Riley). The Indianapolis JOURNAL's George Hitt is listed as the Publisher since he took the book down to Cincinnati, Ohio to be printed. Riley is the "& Co." (Courtesy of the Riley Old Home Society. Greenfield, Indiana.)

tial. Although we cannot identify this sort of work, we can pose that it was of the same gentle, humanitarian and generous point of view as his other writing.

Some mention should also be made about Riley's interest in another media. Sound recordings were just being invented and becoming popular in Riley's era. Riley had planned on releasing nine records in his own voice to the public, but only four were issued: 1) "Out to Old Aunt Mary's," 2) "Little Orphant Annie," 3) "The Happy Little Cripple" and 4) "The Raggedy Man." Five other recordings were made but not marketed: 1) "Goodbye, Jim," 2) "When the Frost is on the Punkin," 3) "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," 4) "On the Banks of Deer Crick" and 5) "The Rain" (it is not known which rain poem this was to be, perhaps "Wet Weather Talk" or "A Sudden Show." These unreleased recordings have been lost to the history of literature. The records appeared in 1914 and 1915 on rolls in the thick Edison style but also on the regular Victrola variety.

When Riley began his literary career, Indiana was within a generation of being the American frontier. Literature in Indiana was a growing interest but no poets wrote poetry in hook form. Riley was the first great published poet in book form. It made him a very wealthy man. That any book of his ever got published is almost miraculous. The business planning for it was simply beyond his capacity. In 1879 and 1880 Riley and one of his many female poet-correspondents, Mary Hartwell Catherwood, planned a book to be entitled THE WHITTLEFORD LETTERS. This never happened.

The very first book Riley published was a great success. Its title was THE OLD SWIMMIN' HOLE" AND 'LEVEN MORE POEMS. George Hitt, Riley's friend and general manager of the Indianapolis JOURNAL, assumed responsibility for its publication. Hitt took Riley's early Benjamin Johnson of Boone poems to Cincinnati in the hopes of finding a publisher who would print them. The publisher Hitt found said he would print the book if somebody would pay for it. The publisher would not publish it at his own expense. Hitt said he would pay for it. The initial publisher is listed on the volume as Hitt and Co. The "and Co." was Riley who also partially contributed to the book's cost of publication.

Replying to your inquiry of the 9th instant, concerning the number and disposition of the first edition, published in July, 1893, of Riley's THE OLD SWIMMIN' HOLE" AND 'LEVEN MORE POEMS, it affords me pleasure to say that (1) the number printed was 1,000 copies; and (2) that they were disposed of, promptly, as my record shows, as follows:

Within three months the edition was exhausted and Merrill, Meigs and Co., immediately reset the matter, with a red line around each page, for a second edition that also appeared in 1883. With this publication, however, I had nothing to do.

As indicated, later Riley was published by Merrill Meigs and Co. which became the Bowen-Merrill Company. In November, 1883, the Merrill, Meigs firm, basically lawbook publishers, reprinted THE OLD SWIMMIN' HOLE" AND 'LEVEN MORE POEMS. Eventually over 500,000 were printed.

Hamlin Garland gave a wonderful account of the impact of the book. He says, "One day in 1885, while calling upon my friend Charles E. Hurd, the Literary Editor of the Boston TRANSCRIPT, I noticed upon his desk a curious little volume bound in parchment entitled THE OLD SWIMMIN' HOLE" AND 'LEVEN MORE POEMS by Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone. Hurd, observing my interest, handed the book to me, saying, "Here is a man you should be interested in. He comes from out your way." (Hamlin Garland, this writer who resided in Boston, had grown up in Iowa.) "This was my introduction to "The Hoosier Poet." I read in this booklet 'When the Frost in on the Punkin,^– My Fiddle,' and other of the pieces which later

became familiar through Riley's readings on the platform and I tasted in them a homely flavor which no other American poet had given me. I became almost at once an advocate of the man and the book. I wrote to the author and thereafter read every line of his writings so far as I could obtain them. I felt that in James Whitcmob Riley America had a writer who voiced as no one else had voice the outlook of the Middle Western farmer."

1. THE OLD SWIM MIN' HOLE" AND 'LEVEN MORE POEMS by Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone. (James Whitcomb Riley), 1883.

5. NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE, 1888. (This book was given many alternate titles.)

17. THE HOMESTEAD EDITION, (which included first edition materials in several of its volumes), 1898, (later volumes in 1902 and 1908.)

39. MEMORIAL EDITION, 1916. (slightly edited version of Biographical Edition with seven poems not published previously).

Of all the books published, THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT was revised the most. Illustrators varied. Publishers groped to try to make something of it and Riley loved to review its mystery. He added this and that as the different editions were published.

When "The Flying Islands of the Night" was reduced to book form for the first time, Riley added the following stanza regarding his book. He did not call the book a "soul journey" or an "accomodation" or a recollection of his life with Nellie Cooley. Instead he merely said the book contained his "heart."

A drawing to illustrate "An Old Sweetheart of Mine' by Howard Chandler Christy for a 1902 Book Edition of that poem.

alcoholism that erupted as a result of team. Crestillomeem was not just on also on Riley's mind. Riley chose to

My suspicion is that "The Flying Islands of the Night" was such a compelling poetic output that it would not die. The Editor of the Indianapolis HERALD wrote Riley that he was going to publish -Flying Islands" again by a letter of June 8, 1885. He says he is writing to do the decent thing to let him know although he doesn't have to.

Riley held off this re-publication of -The Flying Islands" by its originating newspaper, apparently, by contributing other poetry in its place. Riley seems not to have wanted the old poem of his "tremens" dredged up.

What may have caused his change of attitude may have been the great outbreak of publicity anyway about his the break-up of the Riley-Nye comedy the public's mind about Riley, she was deal with her again.

On the other hand, the new editions - the Homestead Edition later in the `90's also revised "The Flying Islands" - increasingly obfuscating the point of the poem although some of the additions do seem recoverable. As an example, what is the meaning of the change to the poem of the following: A stanza of "Chorus of Floating Heads:" "Plumed as the spherey things, we are the host that swings\ And swarms, with a war of wings and a wonder of songs\ Blest with the tumult of glad, gold-throated trumpetings\ That trill to the heavenmost starry heights where the laugh of the storm belongs." (Among the changes to reach this point: Cross out "With a wonder of night" and replace with "Plumed as the spherey things," replace "thoughts" with "songs," remove the plural of "trills" to "trill," and change "peeks" to "heights.") It should be noted that what is happening is Riley is moving the poem into "safer" abstraction.

Commercial GAZETTE wrote, "You can hardly realize that it emanated from the same brain that gave birth to "The Raggedy Man,' 'When the Frost Is on the Punkin,' and 'Good- by, Jim.' This work will not be as satisfactory to the general readers as his others, although some admire it most of all."

A later volume of contained the most beautifully illustrated edition called the "Franklin Booth Edition," after its illustrator.

While the first Riley books were not noted for illustration, the ones published after the 1890's were. As Riley's earlier biographer, Marcus Dickey, has said: "The end of the' nineties marked the beginning of a series of illustrated books, which were received enthusiastically by the book trade and the Riley public...The milestones in his popularity were marked by the appearance of the illustrated books -Child Rhymes and Farm Rhymes and others in the Deer Creek volumes illustrated by Vawter, the crowning suc‑

cess being An Old Sweetheart of Mine in 1902, illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.

This had a tremendous vogue and was fol- Edward Eggleston. -Father of Hoosier Dialect

Aunt Mary's, Home Again with Me, The Girl I Loved, and other titles in the Christy-Riley series.

Of the many illustrators, we remember Will Vawter as being the one most closely associated with Riley. As a young man growing up in Greenfield and suffering from the same alcoholism that plagued Riley, Vawter and Riley shared great empathy.

As can be seen, in the 1890's Riley began to publish his great output of books annually. The time marked the commencement of what is sometimes called the "Golden Age of Hoosier Literature."

Riley would eventually join other Hoosier writers of Indiana's "Golden Age of Literature". Left to right, James Whitcomb Riley, George Ade, Meredith Nicholson, and Booth Tarkington.

Before Riley, the state had only a brief literary tradition which actually began only shortly before the American Civil War Prior to this, the first Hoosier writer of note was Julia Dumont,r school teacher, who published LIFE SKETCHES FROM COMMON PATHS in New York in 1856. She is considered the first Indiana author wit•

a national reputation. Most find her characterizations wooden and scenes of Hoosier life artificial. Nevertheless her pupil, Edward Eggleston, was influenced to take Hoosier experiences as the stuff of his narratives. Eggleston's THE HOOSIER SCHOOLMASTER first published in 1871 has become a classic of frontier life in community. It remains the most vivid picture of Indiana in its unsophisticated adolescence. In the next decade, the Indiana writers James Whitcomb Riley, in poetry, and Lew Wallace, in prose, were two figures very prominent in American literature. Riley's poetry of Hoosier domesticity was particularly popular with the realists.

By the 1890's Hoosier writers included George Barr McCutcheon, author of GRAUSTARK; William Vaughn Moody, employed at the University of Chicago as a Professor of Literature; Gene Stratton-Porter, a housewife near a farm in Fort Wayne; Theodore Dreiser, born near Terre Haute in 1871; Newton Booth Tarkington, soon to be the author of the acclaimed PENROD and other novels; and Charles Major, a Shelbyville writer of romance such as WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER and THE BEARS OF BLUE RIVER.

There were many writers who could be flushed up in every county of the state. George Ade, an Indiana author, once told a story of a traveling lyceum lecturer who had heard the writing was very popular in Indiana at this time. The lecturer, hoping to ingratiate himself with his audience, invited all the authors in his audience to come on stage and sit with him. The entire audience stood up and started forward as Ade told it.

Riley's great wealth derived from sales of books after the great platform successes of the 1880's had caused him to become famous.

He had considered this source of income however from an early age. The fall of 1876, Riley was planning with Benjamin S. Parker of New Castle and Captain Lee 0. Harris, at Parker's suggestion, a collection of verse to be published for the holidays. The project did not materialize but the three corresponded about it extensively. Eventually, Riley's conception of writing books of poetry paid very handsomely. In the warmly humanistic way that was Riley's, much of Riley's wealth has been used to help establish a hospital for children in Indianapolis among other eleemosynary undertakings.

All of his writing to the very end was Nellie Cooley's as well as his own. His heart had gone with Nellie into her grave. From "The Flying Islands of the Night." The night of death will permit him to live again with Nellie.

Night, my Night, with your rich black hair! -Tumble it down till my yearning sight And my unkissed lips are hidden quite

Night, my Night, with your rich black hair! -Looked in your eyes till my face waned white And my heart laid hold of a mad delight

Night, my Night, with your rich black hair! -Lo! will 1⁶ wait as a dead man might

1. This poem was originally published as "Night" in the Indianapolis Saturday HERALD of June 28, 1879 in Riley's front page column of weekly verse called "Poetic Gymnastics." "Night" did not find itself included within "Flying Islands" until the HOMESTEAD EDITION of the poem of 1898.

2. Originally in the plural. The image of Riley embracing and embraced in the arms of his dead inspiring Nellie in death is lost by this reduction from the plural to the singular. On the other hand, the "Night" is perhaps more clearly associated with the death of Nellie in its singularity of "arm."

6. As originally published in 1879, the words were reversed, with the rhetorical "will I' becoming the fatalistic "I will."

By its inclusion in "The Flying Islands of the Night," Riley assimilates the experience of his despair over the death of his "Nellie" into his anticipation of a reunion in the afterlife. One can easily imagine Riley right now having gone right on living after his death playing duets with Nellie at the piano as these lines are read.