Journalist, and writer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Starting as a newspaper reporter in Philadelphia and then New York (188691), he was managing editor of Harper's Weekly (189193) but spent most of his later career as a freelance, travelling and writing articles, as well as fiction and drama. One of the most popular reporters of his day, he covered half a dozen conflicts, including the Spanish-American War, the Boer War, and World War 1, and reported on such events as the 1889 Johnstown, PA flood, and Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee (1897), in a colourful style bordering on the sensational. His short story Gallegher (1890) brought him instant renown as a fiction writer and he wrote many more, often focusing on a gentleman-adventurer as hero. Also popular were his novels, including Soldiers of Fortune (1897), and several plays. His work was considered somewhat superficial and is not well-known today.
Richard Harding Davis (18 April 1864—11 April 1916) was a popular writer of fiction and drama, and a journalist famous for his coverage of the Spanish-American War and the First World War. Davis, a managing editor of Harper's Weekly, was one of the world's leading war correspondents at the time of the Second Boer War in South Africa.
Despite his alleged association with Yellow journalism, his writings of life and travel in Central America, the Caribbean, and his coverage of the Salonika Front of the First World War have remained a vivid portrait of the time.
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