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     As it turns out, James Whitcomb Riley's poems became the inspiration for great art and illustration.  The list of artists and illustrators of Riley poems reads like a "who's who" of the greatest artists and illustrators America has produced.  Certainly the opportunity was there.  The American public made books of James Whitcomb Riley's poetry best sellers over and over.  This was at a time when books were a more primary entertainment medium than today.  There were of course no television sets to watch or home DVD's to run.  The American people settled down to evenings of readings of the poetry of James Whitcomb Riley in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.

     In the now over 100 editions of Riley books of poetry, here is a list of some Riley artists and illustrators:  Will Vawter, Franklin Booth, John Singer Sargent, Emily Hall Chamberlain, T.C. Steele, John Cecil Clay, Howard Chandler Christy, Ethel Franklin Betts, G.M. Relyea, Bertha Stuart, Hewitt Hansen Howland, John Walcott Adams, S.J. Campbell,  Robert Robinson, R.B. Gruell, Baron De Grimm, E. Zimmerman, Walt McDougall, E. Stetson Crawford, Virginia Keep, Margaret Armstrong, S.B. Clinedinst, E.W. Kemble, William B. Dyer, A. Van Dyke, A.D. Neuville, H. Bolton Jones, Oscar Lovell, C.V. Piloty, H.B. Sandham, Alice Barber Stephens, Adrian Marcel, W. Smedley, and A.B. Frost.

     Recently your webster had an opportunity to visit with the author of a new book on the artist Franklin Booth soon to come out.  It was great to get an insight into how illustrators chose to "attack" the works of James Whitcomb Riley.  As the author of a biography of James Whitcomb Riley entitled, "James Whitcomb Riley: The Poet as Flying Islands of the Night," I had always admired the Franklin Booth illustrations of the fanciful Riley "autobiography."