Young Ewing Allison was an American writer and newspaper editor.

Born in Henderson, Kentucky

Henderson, Kentucky

Henderson is a city in Henderson County, Kentucky, United States, along the Ohio River in the western part of the state. The population was 27,952 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Evansville Metropolitan Area often referred to as "Kentuckiana", although "Tri-State Area" or "Tri-State" are more...

, Allison was partially deaf from an early age and became a voracious reader. By the age of fifteen he was working as an editor for the Henderson News; in 1873, he moved to Evansville, Indiana

Evansville, Indiana

Evansville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Indiana and the largest city in Southern Indiana. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 117,429. It is the county seat of Vanderburgh County and the regional hub for both Southwestern Indiana and the...

, where he continued as a newspaper editor. The quality of his reporting caught the attention of the managing editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, and in 1880, Allison was taken on as city editor. In 1887 he founded a trade journal, The Insurance Field and was its editor until 1926.

Allison was a writer of prose and verse and is best remembered for his poem the "Derelict," written to complete the famous verse fragment by Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

 in Treasure Island

Treasure Island

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...

, "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest." He also wrote the libretto to Henry Waller's The Ogallallas, the first American-Indian opera, in 1890. He maintained a long correspondence with Eugene Field

Eugene Field

Eugene Field, Sr. was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays.-Biography:...

 and James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the Hoosier Poet and Children's Poet for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively...

, the latter of whom dedicated several volumes of poetry to Allison.

The last years of his life were spent exploring Kentucky's rich history, often with his close friend J. Christian Bay

Jens Christian Bay

Jens Christian Bay was a Danish American writer and librarian.Born in Rudkøbing, Denmark, Bay came to the United States in 1892 and took a position with the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. He later worked for the Library of Congress and, in 1905, became a librarian at the John Crerar...

 of Chicago. He wrote several articles on the Abbey of Gethsemani

Abbey of Gethsemani

The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani is a Trappist monastery near Bardstown, Kentucky in Nelson County—situated on more than 2,000 acres of farmland, and considered to be the "mother house" of all Trappist and Trappistine monasteries in the United States of America...

, a Trappist monastery in western Kentucky. Allison also played a prominent role in the establishment of Federal Hill, the mansion in Bardstown, Kentucky

Bardstown, Kentucky

As of the census of 2010, there were 11,700 people, 4,712 households, and 2,949 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 5,113 housing units at an average density of...

 that is said to have inspired Stephen Foster's

Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...

 song My Old Kentucky Home

My Old Kentucky Home

"My Old Kentucky Home" is a minstrel song by Stephen Foster , probably composed in 1852. It was published as "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night" in January 1853 by Firth, Pond, & Co. of New York...

, as a state historic site in 1922.

Works

• On the Vice of Novel-Reading, 1897
• Delicious Vice, 1907-09
• City of Louisville and a Glimpse of Kentucky, 1887
• Curious Legend of Louis Philippe in Kentucky, 1924
• Select Works of Young E. Allison, 1935

External links

• Text of the poem "The Derelict"