PHOTOGRAPH BY PACH BROS.RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
PHOTOGRAPH BY PACH BROS.
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
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In1890 there appeared inScribner’s Magazinea short story entitled “Gallegher.” It gave an account of a smart young office boy employed on one of the newspapers, who succeeded in “beating the town” by bringing home a big, sporting story to his paper. It was held at once as one of the best newspaper tales ever printed. When the name of the author, Richard Harding Davis, was mentioned, the reading public recognized him as the son of Rebecca Harding Davis, a fiction writer of established reputation. Davis’ fifty-two years of life were full of color and manly achievement. He was a novelist, short story writer, war correspondent, editor and playwright. He began as newspaper reporter, a pursuit most natural, for his father, L. Clarke Davis, was a brilliant journalist and editor.
Richard Harding Davis was born in Philadelphia in 1864, and attended the Episcopal Academy and afterwards Lehigh and Johns-Hopkins Universities. In his college days he was weak in mathematics, but strong in all that made life full, joyous and vital. He entered eagerly into sports and wrote stories for the Lehigh magazines.
In 1887 he began newspaper work on the PhiladelphiaRecord, also occasionally contributing to thePressand other Philadelphia papers. His first big assignment was in connection with the Johnstown Flood in 1889. It was in thePressoffice that Davis discovered the original Gallegher—the office boy who was immortalized in Davis’ famous story, just as the mongrel dog was vindicated in Davis’ later story “The Bar Sinister.” In 1889 he made a trip to London as correspondent to the PhiladelphiaTelegraph, and while there wrote of the Whitechapel murders in a way that attracted attention. He got his first job in New York in this way. In London he came to know Arthur Brisbane, who was then English correspondent of the New YorkSun, and afterward editor of theEvening Sun. On his return to America he sought a newspaper job in New York, and Brisbane took him on theEvening Sun. His first experience was strikingly characteristic. A bunco man accosted him near the ferry. Davis gave him some marked money, then had him arrested and walked him boldly into theEvening Sunoffice, showed him up for the crook he was—and then wrote him up in the form of a news story for the paper. Aside from his regular assignments as a reporter, Davis busied himself with pictures of various types of New York life. Among these the most famous were the Van Bibber stories, in which Davis presented types of New York society. In 1891 Davis went toHarper’s Weeklyand remained there for three years as managing editor. Then he became a free lance. It was not necessary for him to “hold down a job.” All magazines and book publishers were eager for his work. His first engagement as war correspondent was on the battlefields of the Greco-Turkish War. He was a prominent figure among newspaper correspondents in all the great wars that followed. He made a genuine sensation by his war letters written from Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898. In that war Davis formed a friendship with Theodore Roosevelt that remained firm through life.
In 1898, with the publication of “Soldiers of Fortune” inScribner’s Magazine, the reputation of Davis as a novelist became established, and, thereafter, the fiction that flowed from his pen found an eager and growing audience. His extensive travels enabled him to set his stories in widely varied scenes. “Soldiers of Fortune” told of revolution and political intrigue in a South American republic. That also was the vein and atmosphere of “Captain Macklin” and later of “The White Mice.” In “The Exiles” he invaded Morocco for his background and characters. Later, in “The King’s Jackal,” he laid his scenes in Tangier. “Ranson’s Folly” is a story of American army life—afterwards dramatized, as was “Soldiers of Fortune.” “Princess Aline” is a romantic story of the “Graustark” kind. Besides fiction, Davis wrote many books of adventure and travel impression, such as “Rulers of the Mediterranean,” “Three Gringos in Venezuela,” “The West from a Car Window,” “A Year from a Reporter’s Note Book,” “The Congo and Coasts of Africa.” His later books, based on war correspondence, include “With the French,” “Somewhere in France,” and “With the Allies.”
We have named scarcely half the titles of Davis’ work. He was busy always with his pen, and, as one of his fellow craftsmen in literature observed, he “never penned a dull line.” In all his stories he left a record of his sturdy Americanism and his passionate devotion to a just cause, wherever he found it.
He died suddenly of heart disease on April 12, 1916. The loss to literature was great and was keenly felt in a history-making time like this that demands an eloquent chronicler. Davis will always be remembered as one of the most buoyant, brave, heroic and industrious workers in the field of American literature, a man who saw life fully and clearly, and who reflected it truly, in healthy, ringing, inspiring tones.
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