Don Blanding (Author of Vagabond's House)

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Don Blanding

Born

in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, The United States

November 07, 1894

Died

June 09, 1957

Website

Genre

Poetry

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Donald Benson Blanding was an American poet who sentimentalized warm climates and was sometimes described as "poet laureate of Hawaii". He was also known as a journalist, author of prose, artist, and speaker. Born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, he later grew up alongside a young Lucille "Billie" Cassin (later known as Joan Crawford), later assisting her after she cut her foot on a broken milk bottle. Blanding would make this incident the focus of a poem he wrote when the two met years later. He trained between 1913 and 1915 at the Art Institute of Chicago. Blanding pursued further art studies in 1920, in Paris and London, traveled in Central America and the Yucatan, and resumed living in Honolulu in 1921. Finding work as an artist in an advertisi Donald Benson Blanding was an American poet who sentimentalized warm climates and was sometimes described as "poet laureate of Hawaii". He was also known as a journalist, author of prose, artist, and speaker. Born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, he later grew up alongside a young Lucille "Billie" Cassin (later known as Joan Crawford), later assisting her after she cut her foot on a broken milk bottle. Blanding would make this incident the focus of a poem he wrote when the two met years later. He trained between 1913 and 1915 at the Art Institute of Chicago. Blanding pursued further art studies in 1920, in Paris and London, traveled in Central America and the Yucatan, and resumed living in Honolulu in 1921. Finding work as an artist in an advertising agency, he happened into two years of writing poems published daily in the Honolulu Star Bulletin for an advertiser.

The popularity of these ad-poems led Blanding to follow the advice of newspaper colleagues by publishing a collection of his poetry in 1923. When his privately published 2000 copies quickly sold out, he followed it with a commercially published edition the same year, and with additional verse and prose books. For his fifth book in 1928, he no longer used a local or West Coast publisher, but the New York publisher Dodd, Mead & Company. The result, Vagabond's House, was reviewed promptly by the New York Times, and was a great commercial success. By 1948 it went through nearly fifty printings in several editions that together sold over 150,000 copies.

In 1927, he suggested and founded the annual holiday, Lei Day, in Hawaii. While he remained strongly attached to Hawaii, his connections to the world of celebrities drew him often to the mainland, and his income made hotel life and multiple residences feasible. Blanding married Dorothy Binney Putnam, on June 13, 1940, and they lived in Fort Pierce, Florida. He died without issue on June 9, 1957.

For more information about the life and art of this artist and poet, see the website link referenced above. ...more

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Average rating: 4.08 · 217 ratings · 33 reviews · 104 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	Vagabond's House (Applewood Books) 4.06 avg rating — 83 ratings — published 1935 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Floridays 4.31 avg rating — 32 ratings — published 1941 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Leaves from a Grass House really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 2000 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Virgin of Waikiki: A Torrid Tragedy of the Tropics by Don Blanding, A.B. Butler Jr. (Illustrator) 4.22 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1926 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Songs Of The Seven Senses 3.70 avg rating — 10 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pilot bails out really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 1943 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Paradise Loot 3.86 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 1999 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hula Moons 4.17 avg rating — 6 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Joy is an Inside Job 4.60 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1953 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Let Us Dream 3.67 avg rating — 6 ratings — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Don Blanding (?)

“Do not carve on stone or wood,
He was honest" or "He was good."
Write in smoke on a passing breeze
Seven words鈥� and the words are these,
Telling all that a volume could,
He lived, he laughed and鈥� he understood.”
― Don Blanding

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“How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.”
― Don Blanding

tags: double-life

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Don Blanding鈥檚 Followers (10)

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