Born November 15, 1881, Franklin P. Adams worked for forty years as a leading New York newspaper daily columnist and wit penning light verse and a weekly diary that amused a large and literate audience. A few years after graduating from the Armour Scientific Academy in Chicago in 1899, Adams first entered journalism in Chicago. Then, moving to New York, Adams successfully published mass-market light verse up to the 1940s. He knew everyone in the literary world and even became a mentor to Dorothy Parker. Adams' columns, named "Always in Good Humour" and "The Conning Tower," came out in the New York Tribune, the New York World, the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Post. During World War I he served in France as a captain in the US Intelligence Service. He married Minna Schwartze in 1904 and, after a divorce, Esther Sayles Root in 1925. Adams died in March 23, 1960, survived by his widow and four children. Adams' books of verse include the following:

• Adams, Franklin P. In Cupid's Court. Evanston, Ill.: Lord, 1902.
• --. Tobogganning on Parnassus. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1911. LE A2121t Robarts Library
• --. In Other Words. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1912. LE A212li Robarts Library
• --. By and Large. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1914. PS 3501 D24 B8 1914 SC103E1 York University
• --. Weights and Measures. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1917. LE A2121w Robarts Library
• --. Among Us Mortals. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1917. PN 6161 H53 York University
• --. Something Else Again. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1920. Toronto Reference Library
• --. Overset. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1922.
• --. So There!. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1923.
• --. So Much Velvet. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1924. PS3501 .D24 S46 Robarts Library
• --. Half a Loaf. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1927.
• --. Christopher Columbus and Other Patriotic Verses. New York: Viking, 1931. Toronto Reference Library
• --. The Melancholy Lute: Selected Songs of Thirty Years. New York: Viking, 1936. PS 3501 D24 M4 1936 SC103E3 York University
• --. Nods and Becks. London & New York: McGraw-Hill, 1944. PS 3501 D24 N6 SC103E3 York University
• Ashley, Sally. The Life and Times of Franklin Pierce Adams. New York: Beaufort Books, 1986.
• Gale, Robert L. "Adams, Franklin P." American Biographical Dictionary Online. American Council of Learned Societies: Oxford University Press, 2000.