Payson Sibley Wild

Payson Sibley Wild (1869–1951) was an American author whose work ranged from poetry to literary and classical essays. The Online Books Page lists titles including Idylls of the Skillet Fork, The Valley and Villa of Horace, How Old Is Horace?, and Campi Golfarii Romae Antiquae, showing both his interest in rural American life and his fondness for Latin and Horace.

His best-known widely available book today is Idylls of the Skillet Fork, first published in Chicago in 1918. Project Gutenberg describes it as a collection of poems centered on farm life, humor, seasons, and the people and animals of a rural community, and notes that it was reprinted in part from the Chicago Tribune.

Wild also wrote The Chicago Literary Club: Its History from the Season of 1924-1925 to the Season of 1945-1946, which suggests he was more than a casual observer of that long-running cultural institution. Taken together, the record that survives paints him as a versatile man of letters: part poet, part classicist, and part club historian, with a voice that seems to have been both learned and good-humored.