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Little Orphant Annie
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Little Orphant Annie

poem by Riley
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Article History

Little Orphant Annie, one of the best-known poems of James Whitcomb Riley, first published under the pseudonym “Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone” in the popular collection The Old Swimmin’ Hole and ’Leven More Poems (1883).

“Little Orphant Annie” was written in the Hoosier dialect of Riley’s native Indiana. Sentimental and cheerfully philosophical, the poem concerns an orphaned girl who tells the children in whose house she lives scary stories about “the Gobble-un.”

The cartoonist Harold Gray named his comic strip about a similarly plucky girl Little Orphan Annie.

Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry
Britannica Quiz
A Study of Poetry
This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.