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Richard Harding Davis
Richard Harding Davis was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 18, 1864 and was a writer of drama and fiction, and a journalist. His mother, named Rebecca Harding Davis was a prominent writer during her day. His dad, named Lemuel Clarke Davis, was a journalist and also edited the Philadelphia Public Ledger.

When he was a young man, Richard went to the Episcopal Academy. In the year 1882, after one unhappy year at Swarthmore College, he transferred to Lehigh University, where H. Wilson Harding, his uncle, worked as a professor. While at Lehigh, Davis published his first book, a collection of short stories titled “The Adventures of My Freshman”. Many of the stories had appeared prior in the Lehigh Burr, the student magazine.

He studied at Johns Hopkins and Lehigh Universities before he became a reporter for the Philadelphia Record. After a short stint working at the Philadelphia Press, he took a better paying gig at the New York Evening Sun where he got attention for his flamboyant style and writing on controversial topics like suicide, execution, and abortion.

He first gained attention in May and June of 1889 by reporting on the devastation of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, after the destructive flood. Richard would add to his reputation by reporting on other noteworthy events like the first electrocution of a criminal, William Kemmler’s execution in 1890.

In the year 1890 became the managing editor of Harper’s Weekly. For his Harper’s assignments he toured different parts of the globe, recording his impressions of Europe, the American West, and South America in a series of books published from 1892 to 1896. He was one of the leading war correspondents at the time of the Second Boer War in South Africa. As an American, he has the chance to see the war first hand from the Boer and the British perspectives.

Richard was a war correspondent, reporting on every war from the Greco-Turkish to World War I. He would plunge into what he reported, defying the rules so that he could join in the battle of San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War. He was also nearly shot by the Germans as a spy in The Great War.

In 1896, William Randolph Hearst, the editor and owner of the New York Journal commissioned Davis and a noted illustrator Frederick Remington to cover the Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule.

While in Cuba, Richard wrote many articles that sparked American interest of the Cuban people’s struggles. Two stories especially capture the attention of the public. The first, titled “The death of Rodriguez”, detailed the execution of one young Cuban prisoner. The second was about the strip search of one young Cuban woman. Davis became outraged when Hearst printed the search had been conducted by some male guards, despite Davis reporting the search being conducted by females. After this, Davis resigned and refused to ever work with Hearst again.

Richard was good friends with Theodore Roosevelt, and helped create the legend that surrounded the Rough Riders, of which he was made an honorary member.

Richard was married twice, the first time to an artist named Cecil Clark in the year 1899, and after their divorce in 1912, to Bessie McCoy, a vaudeville performer and actress, who is remembered for her signature “Yama Yama Man” routine. Bessie and Richard had a daughter, named Hope.

“Soldiers of Fortune” was adapted into two movies, once in the year 1914 and again in 1919 by Allan Dwan which starred Dustin Farnum and was shot on the Cuban locations that Davis used in his novel. Davis’ Gallegher and Other Stories became a series called Gallegher, which starred Edmond O’Brien, Roger Mobley, and Harvey Korman on NBC airing as part of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.

Davis also worked for Scribner’s Magazine, The Times, and the New York Herald as a reporter.

When he was onboard the U. S. Navy flagship New York, Davis witnessed the bombing of Mantanzas, giving Joseph Pulitzer’s New York Herald an early “scoop” of the war.

Richard wrote seven popular novels that were published between 1897 and 1909. many of his 25 plays were also quite successful, notably “Ransom’s Folly”, “The Dictator”, and “Miss Civilization”. He also wrote many short stories, which were published in various collections.

He died of a heart attack while on the phone April 11, 1916 in Mount Kisco, New York just seven days before his 52nd birthday.

“Red Cross Girl” is a short story and is a quintessential Harding Davis romance about superior beings. Sister Anne is not really a Red Cross girl but is actually a wealthy heiress with an English lord as a suitor. Sam Ward works as a reporter, just like Davis, and is the best one in all of New York, obviously. He is almost ‘illegally good-looking’ and wide of shoulder.

“Soldiers of Fortune” is a novel that was first published in the year 1897. A romance about America’s nascent imperial power, this recounts the adventures of sometime mercenary and a mining engineer, and Hope Langham, who is the daughter of a wealthy American industrialist, while they get caught up in a coup in Olancho, which is a fictional Latin American republic.

When the coup, which is organized by corrupt generals and politicians, threatens the American owned Valencia Mining Company, Clay organizes all his workers as well as the handful of Americans that are visiting the mine into a counter-coup force.

Written the day before the Spanish-American War, this casts the young American as the hyper masculine and dashing hero of the new economic and military.

“The Princess Aline” is a novelette that was first published in the year 1895. He was within just two feet of the girl that had been called “Aline”. She raised up her head to speak, and she saw Carlton staring at her open-eyed.

She glanced at him for just an instant, as if to assure herself that she didn’t know him. And then, she turned to her brother, smiled in that same tolerant and amused way that she had so often smiled at Carlton from the picture.