Mr. Riley’s methods of work are peculiar to himself. His poems are composed as he travels or goes about the streets, and, once they are thought out, he immediately stops and transfers them to paper. But he must work as the mood or muse moves him. He cannot be driven. On this point he says of himself, “It is almost impossible for me to do good work on orders. If I have agreed to complete a poem at a certain time, I cannot do it at all; but when I can write without considering the future, I get along much better.” He further says, with reference to writing dialect, that it is not his preference to do so. He prefers the recognized poetic form; “but,” he adds, “dialectic verse is natural and gains added charm from its very commonplaceness. If truth and depiction of nature are wanted, and dialect is a touch of nature, then it should not be disregarded. I follow nature as closely as I can, and try to make my people think and speak as they do in real life, and such success as I have achieved is due to this.” The first published work of the author was “The Old Swimmin’ Hole” and “’Leven More Poems,” which appeared in 1883. Since that date he published a number of volumes. Among the most popular may be mentioned, “Armazindy,” which contains some of his best dialect and serious verses, including the famous Poe Poem, “Leonainie,” written and published in early life as one of the lost poems of Poe, and on which he deceived even Poe’s biographers, so accurate was he in mimicking the style of the author of the “Raven;” “Neighborly Poems;” “Sketches in Prose,” originally published as “The Boss Girl and Other Stories;” “Afterwhiles,” comprising sixty-two poems and sonnets, serious, pathetic, humorous and dialectic; “Pipes O’ Pan,” containing five sketches and fifty poems; “Rhymes of Childhood;” “Flying Islands of the Night,” a weird and grotesque drama in verse; “Green Fields and Running Brooks,” comprising one hundred and two poems and sonnets, dialectic, humorous and serious.