Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) was an American writer and journalist, born in Philadelphia, and educated at Lehigh and Johns Hopkins universities. When barely out of his teens, Davis was already turning out society columns, special reports, and short stories for Charles Scribner and William Randolph Hearst. He began as a reporter in Philadelphia. In 1890 he was managing editor of Harper's Weekly. He served as war correspondent for the London Times and the New York Herald during the Greco-Turkish (1897), Spanish-American (1898), South African (1899-1902) and Russo-Japanese (1904-5) wars; and he represented the New York Tribune in Mexico in 1914. During World War I he was correspondent with the French and British armies in Serbia. Among his most popular writings are Gallegher and Other Stories (1891), Soldiers of Fortune (1897), The Bar Sinister (1903), The Man Who Could Not Lose (1911); the plays Ranson's Folly (1904), The Dictator (1904), and Miss Civilization (1906); and many travel books.
Davis was easily the first reporter of his time -- perhaps of all time. Out of any incident or situation he could pick the most details that would interest the most people and put them in a way that was pleasing to the most people; and always, it seemed he had the extraordinary good judgment or the extraordinary good luck to be just where the most interesting thing was taking place. He posed for the male counterpart of the Gibson girl, and introduced the avocado to American dining tables. He counted Stanford White, Charles Dana Gibson, Ethel Barrymore, and Stephen Crane among his somewhat raffish circle of friends and associates.
