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JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY - RELATED COLLECTIONS
This list gives the collection name, date range and number of items in a collection followed by a very brief description of the contents of the collection. All of these collections are related to James Whitcomb Riley.
AMERICAN LITERATURE MSS.- Of particular interest is a Sept. 21, 1897 letter from James Whitcomb Riley to William Webster Ellsworth in which Riley remarks that he has "...not seen proof slip of "Doc's" proem [sic]...." This letter is bound in with the "Proem of the Rubiytt of Doc Siefers." Also included are the following undated Riley items: "The Flying Islands of the Night," a pen and ink drawing of two sailboats, a letter from Riley to George C. Shaw and "A Waste of Genius at Zeksbury."
- DATE RANGE: 1846-1962
- ITEM COUNT: 6,249 items
- Office files of the Appleton-Century publishing company. Includes a file of Riley material containing a memorandum of agreement and some letters.
- DATE RANGE: 1890-1955
- ITEM COUNT: 24 items
- Manuscripts collected by Louise Bernays, includes a Riley autograph.
- DATE RANGE: 1885-1957
- ITEM COUNT: 131,056 items
- Papers of the Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, a publishing house. Includes biographical material on Riley, correspondence, book production material and miscellany pertaining to Riley and his books published by Bobbs-Merrill.
- DATE RANGE: 1877-1885
- ITEM COUNT: 350 items
- Consist chiefly of letters from James Whitcomb Riley to poet Clara Louise Bottsford. Although of a romantic nature, the letters also mention lecture engagements, poets and poetry and persons in other professions.
- DATE RANGE: 1879-1921
- ITEM COUNT: 46 items
- Personal letters and poems of James Whitcomb Riley sent to Elizabeth D. Kahle. Miss Kahle met Riley at a literary society meeting and a correspondence ensued. Later Miss Kahle married Harry Brunn and the letters from Riley ceased.
- DATE RANGE: 1894-1898
- ITEM COUNT: 4 items
- Consist of correspondence between James Whitcomb Riley and Lillian Callahan Richards, a poem by Riley entitled, "O thou fairest of the fair" inscribed to Richards, a photograph of Riley and two unidentified photographs.
- DATE RANGE: 1872-1941
- ITEM COUNT: 2,161 items
- Papers of John Marcus Dickey, biographer of James Whitcomb Riley. Dickey served as platform manager for Riley from 1896 to 1901 and as Riley's secretary from 1901 to 1906. Dickey published The Youth of James Whitcomb Riley and The Maturity of James Whitcomb Riley. Included in the collection are letters and copies of letters written by Dickey as Riley's secretary and biographer and manuscripts of writings of Dickey about Riley.
- DATE RANGE: 1892-1900
- ITEM COUNT: 9 items
- Letters, writings and sketches of James Whitcomb Riley collected by Walter E. Evans, an employee of the Bowen- Merrill Company of Indianapolis, Indiana. Includes "Green Fields and Running Brooks," a group of Riley poems and page proofs for "Home-Folks."
- DATE RANGE: 1819-1939
- ITEM COUNT: 150,006 items
- Consist of letters and papers of Charles Warren Fairbanks, U.S. senator and vice-president of the U.S. and his son, Warren Charles Fairbanks, newspaper publisher. Both gentlemen corresponded with Riley and their letters are included in the collection.
- DATE RANGE: 1891-1938
- ITEM COUNT: 26 items
- Letters from James Whitcomb Riley to journalist George Cooper Hitt. George C. Hitt & Co. published Riley's first book: The Old Swimmin'-hole, and 'Leven more poems in 1883.
- DATE RANGE: 1892-1916
- ITEM COUNT: 124 items
- Personal letters from James Whitcomb Riley to Charles Louis Holstein, lawyer and Magdalena Nickum Holstein, who both lived at 528 Lockerbie Street, Indianapolis, Indiana. Riley lived with the Holsteins from 1893 till his death in 1916. These letters have been referred to as "the Lockerbie letters."
- DATE RANGE: 1875-1931
- ITEM COUNT: 21 items
- Letters to author Booth Tarkington or to his sister, Mary Booth Tarkington Jameson. Included are some Riley letters. Two of Riley's letters have poems inscribed in them and a third poem by Riley is filed in a folder of writings.
- DATE RANGE: 1919-1954
- ITEM COUNT: ca. 6,000 items
- Correspondence of Josiah Kirby Lilly, corporation executive of the Lilly Pharmaceutical Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, with bookdealers concerning the purchase of books and manuscripts for his library which reveal a concentration of interest in Edgar Allan Poe and James Whitcomb Riley. Of particular interest pertaining to Riley are the files for the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop, Bobbs-Merrill, Paul G. Henderson and the Hoosier Bookshop.
- DATE RANGE: 1905-1935
- ITEM COUNT: 23 items
- Correspondence of author Albert William Macy with David Laurence Chambers, vice-president of the Bobbs-Merrill Co., publishers, in regard to the possible publication of Macy's early recollections of James Whitcomb Riley.
- DATE RANGE: 1939-1949
- ITEM COUNT: 5 items
- Letters relating to James Whitcomb Riley and his family written by Minnie Bell Mitchell, author and friend of James Whitcomb Riley; her son John Fowler Mitchell, editor; and his wife, Elsie D. Mitchell, all of Grenfield, Indiana, to Mrs. Jesse T. Johnson of Columbus, Indiana.
- DATE RANGE: 1876-1962
- ITEM COUNT: 951 items
- Papers of Lesley Payne, musician and niece of James Whitcomb Riley. Lesley Payne and her mother were heirs with the Eitel cousins to the Riley estate. Includes correspondence pertaining to Riley as well as photographs of Riley.
- DATE RANGE: 1868-1928
- ITEM COUNT: 20,000 items
- Papers of Samuel Moffett Ralston, Indiana governor and U.S. senator. Includes a scrapbook containing newspaper clippings about Riley.
- DATE RANGE: 1858-1944
- ITEM COUNT: ca. 13,300 items
- Correspondence and papers of James Whitcomb Riley. Includes writings consisting mostly of manuscripts of poems, but also some speeches, lectures and other prose. Correspondence is mainly amongst friends, but there is some family letters and business letters. There is a separate file of letters from children to Riley. Also included is a file of transcripts of Riley letters assembled by author John Marcus Dickey. (Dickey was at one time the secretary of Riley.) The purpose of assembling the transcripts was to produce a volume of correspondence approved by Riley during his lifetime. Approximately 3,000 transcripts of letters were accumulated but the volume of correspondence was never published. Miscellaneous items include drawings, wooden patent medicine signs painted by Riley as a young man, photographs of Riley and his homes and three scrapbooks of newspaper clippings and mimeographed correspondence.
- DATE RANGE: 1889-1914
- ITEM COUNT: 36 items
- Letters from Meredith Nicholson, 1886-1947, written to Riley.
- DATE RANGE: 1876-1917
- ITEM COUNT: 2,624 items
- Further correspondence and writings of James Whitcomb Riley.
- DATE RANGE: 1875-1917
- ITEM COUNT: 2,624 items
- Those manuscripts by or about Riley, which have been acquired as separate pieces.
- DATE RANGE: 1876-1917
- ITEM COUNT: 1,373 items
- Further correspondence and writings of James Whitcomb Riley.
- DATE RANGE: 1876-1916
- ITEM COUNT: 3,016 items
- Mainly transcripts of the letters of James Whitcomb Riley, 1849- 1916.
- DATE RANGE: 1894-1919
- ITEM COUNT: 56 items
- Poems of John Andrew Riley, brother of James Whitcomb Riley.
- ITEM COUNT: 34 items
- Musical compositions by Indiana composer Barclay Walker and by his daughter, Mary Josephine Walker Wolff. Of particular interest is "Griggsby's Station: A Sweet Story of Long Ago," a libretto and one song. This story is written around characters suggested by the poems of James Whitcomb Riley.