Richard Henry Savage

Savage, 1894.

Richard Henry Savage (born June 12, 1846 in Utica , New York , † October 11, 1903 in New York City ) was an American officer and writer.

Live and act

Savage was the son of the lawyer Richard Savage (1817-1903) and his wife Jane Moorhead Ewart. The Savage family also wanted to participate in the California gold rush : His father went to California in 1850 , the rest of the family came to San Francisco in early 1852. When Charles Warren Stoddard started a school, Savage et al. a. together with Charles de Young one of his first students.

In 1861, Savage finished school and returned to his hometown to study. At the beginning of the Civil War , he joined the Union Army . Because of his age, his father intervened and got him a place at the United States Military Academy ( West Point ) instead . There he studied a. a. Engineering and Law and then served for some time with the United States Army Corps of Engineers .

Effective December 31, 1870, Savage left the army and was appointed Vice-Consul by Ulysses S. Grant (18th President of the United States ). This office led Savage first to Marseille and later to Rome . In the following year he went to Egypt as secretary to Charles Pomeroy Stone for a year and worked there a. a. as a military advisor at the court of Ismail Pasha .

In 1872 Savage returned to the USA and worked for the next two years on a commission investigating various incidents on the American-Mexican border. In parallel, he supported Richard King (1824-1885) with surveying work on the Corpus Christi & Rio Grande Railroad .

During a stay in Washington, DC he met the German widow Anna Josephine Scheible (1849-1910) and married her on January 2, 1873 in the German embassy there . He had a daughter with her, who later married Anatol de Carriere, a tsarist administrator.

Together with his wife and daughter, he settled in San Francisco in 1874 for the next ten years. There Savage had the rank of colonel in the California National Guard .

During a study trip through Honduras, he fell ill with jungle fever (probably malaria ). Savage spent his time in the hospital in New York writing his first book, My official wife . After his recovery he stayed with his family in New York.

On February 16, 1898, Savage volunteered for the American-Spanish War to fight on the front lines; Instead, he helped significantly with, Camp Columbia , a military base in Havana ( Cuba design), and build. On December 10th of the same year Savage was able to fly the flag of the United States there.

Together with his wife he traveled to Russia a few times . a. to Chișinău - where his daughter was married.

Richard Henry Savage was involved in a traffic accident in New York on October 11, 1903. He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital , where he died that same day.

Works (selection)

• My official wife . 1891.
  • German: My official wife. Novel . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1923.
• The little lady of Lagunitas . 1892.
• Prince Schamyl's wooing . 1892.
  • German: Prince Schamyl's courtship. A story from the Russo-Turkish war . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1894 (2 volumes, translated by Natalie Rümelin )
• Of life and love . 1893.
• Delilah of Harlem. A story of the New York City of today . 1893.
  • German: The witch of Harlem . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1897 (translated by Ferdinand F. Mangold)
• The anarchist. A story of today . 1893.
• The masked Venus . Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1893 (English)
  • German: The masked Venus. A novel from many countries . Dreyer, Berlin 1905.
• The princess of Alaska . 1894.
  • German: the princess of Alaska . Hillger Publishing House, Berlin 1898.
• The flying halcyon. A mystery of the Pacific Ocean . 1894.
  • German: The flying kingfisher . Habbel Verlag, Regensburg 1977, ISBN 3-7748-0350-1 .
• Miss Devereux of the Mariquita. A story of Bonanza days in Nevada . 1895.
• His Cuban sweetheart . 1895.
• After many years . 1895.
• An exile from London . 1896.
• Lost Contessa Falka . 1896.
• Checked through, missing trunk No. 17580 . 1896.
• An awkward meeting, fighting the tiger and other thrilling adventures . 1897.
• A fascinating traitor . 1897.
• Captain Landon. A story of modern Rome . 1897.
• A modern corsair. A story of the Levant . 1897.
• In the swim. A story of currents and under-currents in Gayest New York . 1898.
• The white lady of Khaminavatka. A story of the Ukraine . 1899.
• The midnight passenger . 1900.
• The mystery of a shipyard . 1902.
• The last traitor of Long Island. A story of the sea . 1904 (posthumous)

literature

• Marilyn Canada: Bigger than life. The creator of Doc Savage . Popular Press, New York 1990, ISBN 0-87972-471-4 .
• George W. Cullum (arr.): Biographical register of the officers and graduates of the US Military Academy . Houghton Mifflin, New York 1901, p. 177.

Web links

• Literature by and about Richard Henry Savage in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Individual evidence

1. ^ Founder of the San Francisco Chronicle .