Richard Harding Davis

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Richard Harding Davis (1903)

Richard Harding Davis (born April 18, 1864 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † April 11, 1916 in Mount Kisco , New York ) was an American writer , journalist and playwright .

biography

The son of the journalist Lemuel Clarke Davis and the novelist Rebecca Harding Davis studied after school, first until his expulsion at Lehigh University and then at Johns Hopkins University . He then began a career as a journalist himself and was initially a reporter for the daily newspaper The Philadelphia Record in 1886 , before he became an employee of the Philadelphia Inquirer , whose editor-in-chief his father was at the time. In 1889 he joined the New York Sun and then in 1890 as managing editor for the magazine Harper's Weekly .

Cover title of Three Gringos in Venezuela and Central America (1896)

He then worked as a freelance journalist for newspapers belonging to William Randolph Hearst's group and reported on numerous theaters of war such as the Turkish-Greek War in 1897 and the Second Boer War . Because of his reports, he was sometimes accused of glorifying war as a "gentlemen's sport". His partly fictional portrayal of the use of the Rough Riders in the Battle of San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War in 1898 contributed to the portrayal of Theodore Roosevelt as a war hero . At the beginning of the First World War he was arrested in Germany in 1914 as an alleged spy , but released shortly afterwards.

His best-known books on war events and his trips abroad include Gallegher (1890), Van Bibber and Others (1892), Rulers of the Mediterranean (1894), About Paris (1895), Three Gringos in Venezuela and Central America (1896), Soldiers of Fortune (1897, German: Soldiers of Fortune , 2 vols., Stuttgart 1900) on Lee Christmas , With Both Armies in South Africa (1901), Ranson's Folly (1902) and Real Soldiers of Fortune (1906) on Frederick Russell Burnham .

Davis, who was a friend of Ethel Barrymore and later married to actresses Cecil Clark Davis and Bessie McCoy, also wrote numerous plays for Broadway . His best-known pieces include The Littlest Girl (1895), The Taming of Helen (1903), The Dictator (1904), Miss Civilization (1906), The Galloper (1906), The Yankee Tourist (1907), Who's Who? (1913) and The Trap (1915). He has also written adaptations of his books Soldiers of Fortune (1902) and Ranson's Folly (1904) for the theater.

The autobiographical book Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis (1917) and the play The Girl from Home (1920) were only published posthumously .

Background literature

  • Fairfax Davis Downey: Richard Harding Davis: His Day , New York City, C. Scribner's Sons, 1933
  • Lewis S. Miner: Mightier than the Sword: The Story of Richard Harding Davis , Chicago, A. Whitman & Co., 1940
  • Scott Compton Osborn: Richard Harding Davis: The Development of A Journalist Lexington, University of Kentucky Press, 1953
  • Gerald Langford: The Richard Harding Davis Years: A Biography of A Mother and Son , New York City, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961
  • Arthur Lubow: The Reporter who Would be King: A Biography of Richard Harding Davis , New York City, Maxwell Macmillan International, 1992
  • John D. Seelye: War Games: Richard Harding Davis and the New Imperialism , Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 2003

Web links

Commons : Richard Harding Davis  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Soldiers of Fortune (Google Books)
personal data
SURNAME Davis, Richard Harding
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American novelist, journalist, and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH April 11, 1916
Place of death Mount Kisco , New York