Category: Poetry: American

Copyright/published Year: 1993 by Indiana University P

ISBN: 0253207770

Binding: trade pap

Description: Few lives have left so vivid an impression upon a native ì environment as that of James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet. ì His folksy, down-home rhymes are still enormously popular in his ì native state and beyond. This publication brings back into print ì the complete Riley repertoire of more than 1,000 poems, including ì such all-time favorites as "Little Orphant Annie" (far and away ì the best-loved of all Riley characters), "The Raggedy Man," "Our ì Hired Girl," "A Barefoot Boy," "The Bumblebee," "Granny," and ì "When the Frost Is on the Punkin."

It is said that Indiana's best-known poet did not portray but ì invented the typical Hoosier. Applying imaginative skill, Riley ì altered and adapted the people around him to suit his purpose. As ì Jeannette Covert Nolan once put it, the figure who emerged was "a ì mellow, humorous rustic, a quaint, bucolic philosopher, ì unlettered but gifted with an earthy shrewdness, a peasant ì wisdom, a heart of gold, speaking a drawling, hybrid tongue, a ì dubious dialect as yet unidentified by any philologist." In his heyday Riley was famous all over the world. Though often ì called a children's poet, he actually wrote about children for ì adults, delighting in emotional reminders of an irretrievable ì past?perhaps one that never quite existed. Throughout his life ì Riley looked back wistfully and sentimentally upon his childhood ì days, turning the longings and unfulfilled dreams of youth into ì verse. So celebrated was he in Indiana that in many public ì elementary schools, students were required to memorize and recite ì one of his poems every week for admiring audiences of visiting ì parents.

Condition Information

This is a used book and is in ' like new' condition.

Additional condition description

Minimal shelfwear. No remainder marks, no spine creases. Sound Binding.