Thomas Augustine Daly is best known for his humorous verse primarily in Italian or Irish-American dialect. Although popular for forty years as a poet, he was a versatile writer, and he built an international reputation as an author, columnist, and lecturer. His dialectal humor continued the tradition of native American humor, but without its rougher or more vulgar traits. Like his contemporaries, the "Colyumnists," who wrote humorous daily columns, his method was polished, though often their bite was sharper than Daly's sentimental verses.

Born in Philadelphia, T. A. Daly lived his entire life in that area. His parents, John Anthony and Anne Victoria Duckett Daly established the first Catholic bookstore in Philadelphia. The Irish boy "Tom" attended public schools and Catholic boarding schools until age fourteen, when he enrolled in Villanova College where he began his literary efforts in college notebooks. Daly transferred to Fordham University but quit...