RUBAIYAT OF DOC SIFERS; By James Whitcomb Riley / Illustrated by C. M. Relyea

New York: The Century Co, 1907. Decorated & gilt-stamped cloth. Fine/None. C. M. Relyea. Small 8vo (7 3/4" x 5 3/8"), decorative light green cloth with gilt lettered spine & an inset panel of a doctor, horse & buggy in silhouette along the top of the gilt-rule bordered front cover, frontispiece reproduces sketch of James Whitcomb Riley, approximately 50 in-text illustrations often facing poetry/rubai, top edges of pages gilded by publisher for dust protection, x-[xii] + [1] 2-111 pages of glossy stock. James Whitcomb Riley (1849 - 1916) was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. His poems tended to be humorous or sentimental, and of the approximately one thousand poems that Riley authored, the majority are in dialect. His famous works include "Little Orphan Annie," "America!," "The Raggedy Man," "The Soldier," "When the Frost is on the Pumpkin," and the "Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers." From the mid-1880s, Riley was the nation's most read poet, a trend that accelerated at the turn of the century. SUPERIOR CONDITION internally & externally! In this warm and affectionate poem, Riley has amusingly and quaintly emulated Omar Khayyam's more famous Rubaiyat with his gentle and mildly dialectical poem celebrating a good country doctor. In addition to its charm, 'twould make an excellent gift for a physician, nurse, or someone in the health professions.