author
Payson Sibley Wild
1869–1951
A classicist, literary clubman, and poet of rural America, he moved comfortably between the ancient world and the Illinois countryside. His best-known work, Idylls of the Skillet Fork, turns everyday farm life into warm, musical verse.
1 Audiobook
Idylls of the Skillet Fork
by Payson Sibley Wild
About the author
Born in 1869 and active in American literary life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Payson Sibley Wild wrote poetry and essays with a wide range of interests. Surviving records connect him with works on both classical subjects and contemporary life, including The Valley and Villa of Horace, Campi golfarii Romae antiqvae, and the later Idylls of the Skillet Fork.
What makes his writing especially appealing is that mix of learning and ease. He could write about Horace and ancient Rome, but he also had an ear for local speech and the rhythms of ordinary people, which gives Idylls of the Skillet Fork much of its charm.
Wild died in 1951. Although he is not widely known today, his work still offers a glimpse of a writer who enjoyed both scholarship and lived experience, and who could make either one feel inviting on the page.