The Children's Homer: (Illustrated by Willy Pogany)

Born and raised in a Longford, Ireland workhouse, Padraic Colum left home at seventeen to become a clerk in the Irish Railway Clearing House in Dublin. This venture was short-lived, however, and with the success of a few poems and a play, "The Saxon Shillin'," in 1904 he went on to pursue a career in writing. His success as a dramatist, poet, novelist, essayist, biographer, children's writer, and editor, as well as his participation in the founding of the Abbey Theatre, made Colum a central...