Richard Harding Davis, American writer, journalist, and war correspondent, was born April 18, 1864, in Philadelphia and died April 11, 1916. He was the son of newspaper editor Lemuel Clarke and Rebecca Harding Davis, a novelist.
Davis began his writing career as a journalist and is perhaps best known for his work as a war correspondent, reporting on the War of 1898 in Cuba, the Boer War in South Africa, and World War I. Davis's articles appeared among the pages of many newspapers, including the Philadelphia Record , the Philadelphia Press , and the New York Evening Sun .
Many of Davis's works enjoyed mass circulation through popular periodicals such as Stage , Scribner's Magazine , Harper's Weekly , Harper's New Monthly Magazine , Collier's Weekly , Outing , Metropolitan Magazine , and the New York Times Magazine . Though Davis had aspirations for a literary career, producing both plays and novels, his works were not always received with fanfare.
"Richard Harding Davis." Contemporary Authors Online (reproduced in Biography Resource Center). http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC (accessed October 2008).
The Richard Harding Davis collection is a small association collection containing six autographed letters signed by the author; four newspapers clippings; several photographs of Davis and his estate, Crossroads Farm in Mt. Kisco, New York; and a line print of an engraving by Charles Dana Gibson entitled "No. V. The Opera Box. Copyright, 1892. The Century Co."
The collection is a gift of a descendant of the Smidt family who purchased the Crossroads Farm estate.