Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of James Whitcomb Riley, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 2407 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book 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

Book 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.Download Description
All Seemed Delighted, Though The Elders More, Of Course, Than Were The Children.--thus, Before Much Interchange Of Mirthful Compliment, The Story-teller Said His Stories "went" (like A Bad Candle) Best When They Went Out. ... Read more

Book 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

Book Description
Few literary figures have achieved the fame ofJames Whitcomb Riley, the most popular poet in America at theend of the 19th century--the height of his career.Legendsand rumors either elevate Riley as a hero who gave Hoosierspride of place, or denigrate him as a drunken author ofVictorian doggerel.In this first serious modern biographyof Riley, Van Allen sifts facts from fiction to paint thetruest 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

Book 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.
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