author
Samuel E. (Samuel Ellsworth) Kiser
1862–1942
A newspaper columnist and poet with a gift for warm humor, sharp observation, and everyday feeling, he wrote verses that turned office life, family life, and ordinary struggles into something memorable. His work was widely read in the early 1900s and still feels approachable because it stays close to common people and plain speech.
2 Audiobooks
Thrills of a Bell Boy
by Samuel E. (Samuel Ellsworth) Kiser
Love Sonnets of an Office Boy
by Samuel E. (Samuel Ellsworth) Kiser
About the author
Born in Pennsylvania in 1862, Samuel Ellsworth Kiser became an American writer, editor, and poet whose career grew out of journalism. He began newspaper work in Cleveland and later became an editorial and special writer for the Chicago Record-Herald, where his column "Whimwhams and Sentiment" helped make him known to a broad readership.
Kiser wrote in a lively, accessible style that mixed humor, sentiment, and encouragement. His books included Love Sonnets of an Office Boy, Soul Sonnets of a Stenographer, Ballads of the Busy Days, and Poems That Have Helped Me. The titles alone show what made him distinctive: he liked modern, everyday subjects and treated them with wit and sympathy rather than grandeur.
He died in 1942. Today he is remembered as a poet of ordinary life, especially for pieces that are inspirational, gently comic, or affectionate toward working people and family life.