author
Edwin Carlile Litsey
1874–1970
A Kentucky banker who quietly built a second life as a prolific poet, short-story writer, and novelist, this early 20th-century author wrote with a strong sense of place and a deep feeling for local life. His work helped carry the voice of rural Kentucky to a wide national audience.
4 Audiobooks
The Race of the Swift
by Edwin Carlile Litsey
The Man from Jericho
by Edwin Carlile Litsey
The Love Story of Abner Stone
by Edwin Carlile Litsey
A Maid of the Kentucky Hills
by Edwin Carlile Litsey
About the author
Born in Washington County, Kentucky, in 1874, Edwin Carlile Litsey spent most of his life rooted in the same region he wrote about. Alongside a long career in banking in Lebanon, Kentucky, he published poetry, short stories, and novels, drawing again and again on the people and landscapes of his home state.
His literary career was remarkably productive. Surviving papers at the University of Kentucky include typescripts for 174 short stories, 218 poems, and nine novels, showing just how steadily he wrote over the years. Several of his books, including A Maid of the Kentucky Hills, remain available through Project Gutenberg, helping modern readers discover his fiction.
Litsey also received public recognition in Kentucky literary life. He won the 1904 Black Cat Story Contest, a major magazine competition of its day, and in 1954 he was named Kentucky Poet Laureate. He died in 1970 at age 95, leaving behind a body of work closely tied to Kentucky history, memory, and storytelling.