Riley left school at the age of 16 and worked for a time as a sign painter. In 1872, he published some poetry in the Indianapolis Saturday Mirror. In 1873, he joined the local Greenfield newspaper and in 1877 moved on to become an associate editor of the Andersen Democrat. While his poetry was very popular in his native state of Indiana, he was frustrated at the lack of enthusiasm from eastern periodicals. To prove his point, he wrote a poem styled after Edgar Allan Poe entitled Leonainie and claimed that it was a long-lost Poe original. He easily persuaded the Kokomo Dispatch to print it and thus proved his point, but the resulting scandal lost him his job. He moved on to the Indianapolis Journal, where his work, When the Frost is on the Punkin, first appeared in serial form. Collected into a book in 1883, it met with a resounding success. The series introduced many memorable characters including The Raggedy Man and Little Orphant Annie. His fame grew and he became one of the wealthiest authors of his era. The "Hoosier" poet, as Riley became known, is still popular and very readable today. His other works include Afterwhiles (1888), Old-Fashioned Roses (1888), Rhymes of Childhood (1891), Green Fields and Running Brooks (1893), Riley Love-Lyrics (1899), His Pa's Romance (1903), While the Heart Beats Young (1906), Knee Deep in June (1912) and Fugitive Pieces (1914). |
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