This Goodly Land

Eleanor de la Vergne Risley (January 1867–September 5, 1945)

Other Names Used

• Eleanor de la Vergne Doss: birth name
• Dosia Philips: pen name

Alabama Connections

• Fairhope, Baldwin County: adult residence, subject of Real Fairhope Folks
• Northern Alabama: travels, subject of The Road to Wildcat

Selected Works

• Risley, Eleanor. Real Fairhope Folks. Fairhope, Ala.: Courier Press, 1928.
• Risley, Eleanor de la Vergne. The Road to Wildcat: A Tale of Southern Mountaineering. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1930. Rpt. as The Road to Wildcat: A Tale of Mountain Alabama. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004. An online version of The Road to Wildcat is available from Google Books.
• Risley, Eleanor de la Vergne. An Abandoned Orchard. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1932.

Biographical Information

Eleanor de la Vergne Risley was born in Nashville, Tenn., and grew up in Brownington, Mo. She married a Kansas City businessman, but the marriage ended in divorce after the death of their young son. Risley moved to San Francisco and remarried. When her husband went missing and was presumed dead, she remained in San Francisco briefly, then moved back to Missouri. She ran an apple orchard near Nevada, Mo., and married a farm labor organizer. The couple moved to Fairhope, Ala., in the early 1920s and became involved with local writing groups. In 1925, Risley was diagnosed with diabetes. She expected to die shortly and wanted to travel first. Her husband built a pushcart, and the two of them walked around northern Alabama over several months.

Risley’s health improved and, in 1926, the couple moved to a cabin near Ink, Ark. They lived there for eight years, and Risley wrote a series of articles about their Alabama trip which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. She also wrote and published several books. Real Fairhope Folks was published by a local firm in Fairhope, but The Road to Wildcat and An Abandoned Orchard received national publication. The couple moved to Mena, Ark., in 1935, and to Eureka Springs, Ark., the following year. In Eureka Springs, they lived with artist Louis Freund (Risley’s cousin) and his family amid a group of writers and artists. Risley continued to write but didn’t publish again. Her health deteriorated and her eyesight failed, probably as a result of her diabetes. In 1945, Risley died at a hospital in Little Rock, Ark., following surgery. She was buried in Eureka Springs.

Interests and Themes

Eleanor de la Vergne Risley wrote nonfiction about the places she lived and the people she encountered. Real Fairhope Folks and The Road to Wildcat are about Alabama.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Reference Book Prefaces

• Viera, Carroll. Introduction. The Road to Wildcat: A Tale of Mountain Alabama by Eleanor de la Vergne Risley. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, . ix-xviii.

Reference Web Sites

• Compton, Ellen. "Eleanor de la Vergne Doss Risley (1868-1945)". The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. 2008. The Central Arkansas Library System. http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1077.
• Viera, Carroll. "Eleanor Risley". The Encyclopedia of Alabama. 2009. Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2419.

Location of Papers

• University of Arkansas

Last updated on Sep 24, 2009.