James Avis Bartley

James Avis Bartley was an American poet born in 1830. In the sources available here, he is identified as being of Orange County, Virginia, and library records list his lifespan as 1830–1914.

His best-known surviving collection, Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems (1855), presents him as a regional writer deeply interested in Virginia's past. The book's prefatory note says he wrote the poems for pleasure and hoped they would be read with pleasure too, which gives a nice sense of his direct, personal voice.

Other recorded volumes include Poems (1882) and New Poems (1883), both published in Charlottesville. Based on these works, Bartley appears to have remained committed to poetry over many years, with subjects ranging from local history and landscape to love, reflection, and imaginative romantic scenes.