Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

John Vance Cheney

(1848-1922)
New York & California

John Vance Cheney was born in Groveland, New York. He studied law and was admitted to the bar. He is reputed to have found no pleasure in the legal profession and began to publish his poetry with periodicals, in particular, Century.

Cheney departed for California in 1876 and served for seven years as librarian of the Free Public Library of San Francisco (1887-94), where he was acquainted with Joaquin Miller. From 1894 to 1909, Cheney was librarian of the Newberry Library, in Chicago.

[Stanley J. Kunitz & Howard Haycraft (eds.), American Authors 1600-1900: A Biographical Dictionary of American Literature 145-46 (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1932)] [See also: The National Cyclopedia of Biography 289 (New York: James T. White & Co., 1892)(vol. 6)]

Poems

[Evening Songs] [Every One to His Own Way] [Somewhere] [The Happiest Heart] [The Man With the Hoe] [The Skilful Listener] [The Strong] [Whither] [Somewhere] [Days That Come and Go] [One] [The Parting of Ilmar and Haadin] [The Pilgrims] [Music] [Great is To-Day] [Lord It For Aday] [Two Poems]

Poetry

John Vance Cheney, Thistle-drift (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 4th ed., 1887) [online text]

________________, Wood Blooms (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1888)(2nd ed., 1892)

_______________, Ninette, A Redwoods Idyll (San Francisco: W. Doxey, 1894)

_______________, Queen Helen and Other Poems (Chicago: Way & Williams, 1895)

_______________, Out of the Silence (Boston: Copeland and Day, 1897) [online text]

_______________, For Thinking Hearts (Boston: E.H. Bacon & Company, 1903)

_______________, Poems (New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905) [online text]

_______________, Lyrics (Boston: C. C. Birchard and Co., 1901) [online text]

_______________, For Thinking Hearts (Boston: E.H. Bacon & Company, 1903)

_______________, The Time of Roses (Portland, Maine: Thomas B. Mosher, 1908)

_______________, At the Silver Gate (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1911) [online text]

_______________, My Heartside: Poems Written to Sally (Chicago: Ralph Fletcher Seymour Publishing, 1922) [online text]

Writings

John Vance Cheney, The Old Doctor. A Romance of Queer Village (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1885) [online text]

_______________, The Golden Guess: Essays on Poetry and the Poets (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1892)(1891) [online text]

Simeon Pease Cheney, Wood Notes Wild, Notations of Bird Music (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1892)(John Vance Cheney ed.)

John Vance Cheney, That Dome in Air: Thoughts on Poetry and The Poets (Chicago: A.C. McClurg and Co., 1895) [online text]

George Horatio Derby, Phonixiana (Chicago: The Caxton Club, 1897)(John Vance Cheney ed.)(2 vols.)

John Vance Cheney, Thistle-Drift (New York: White, Stokes & Allen, 1887)

John Vance Cheney (ed.), The Caxton Club Scrap-Book: Early English Verses, 1250-1650 (Chicago: The Caxton Club, 1904)

_______________ (ed.), Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States from Johnson to Roosevelt (Chicago, Lakeside Press, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, 1905)

Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Chicago: Reilly & Britton Co., 1906)(John Vance Cheney ed.)

_______________ (ed.), Memorable American Speeches (Chicago: Lakeside Press, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, 1907-1910)(4 vols.)

_______________, Secession, War, Reconstruction (Chicago: Lakeside Press, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, 1910)

_______________, Travels of John Davis in the United States of America1798 to 1802 (Boston: Privately Printed/The Bibliophile Society, 1910)

Research Resources

Papers of John Vance Cheney
Waller Barrett Library
University of Virginia Library
Charlottesville, Virgina

Librarian's Correspondence
Newberry Library
Chicago, Illinois

Letters
Markham Manuscript Collection
Wagner College, Staten Island, New York