James Whitcomb Riley (October 7, 1849 – July 22, 1916) was an American writer and poet. Known as the "Hoosier Poet", "National Poet" [1] and the "Children's Poet," [2] he started his career during 1875 writing newspaper verse in Indiana dialect for the Indianapolis Journal. His verse tended to be humorous or sentimental, and of the approximately one-thousand poems that Riley published, over half are in dialect. Claiming that “simple sentiments that come direct from the heart”^[1] were the reason for his success, Riley vended verse about ordinary topics that were "heart high."^[2] Riley was a bestselling author during the early 1900s and earned a steady income from royalties; he also traveled and gave public readings of his poetry. His favorite authors were Robert Burns and Charles Dickens, and Riley himself befriended bestselling Indiana authors such as Booth Tarkington, George Ade and Meredith Nicholson. Many of his works were illustrated by the popular illustrator Howard Chandler Christy.