A Wasted Day

Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) was a popular writer of fiction and drama, and a journalist famous for his coverage of the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer 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. As an American, he had the unique opportunity to see the war first-hand from both the British and Boer perspectives. Davis also worked as a reporter for the New York Herald, The Times, and Scribner's Magazine. Despite his alleged association with Yellow journalism, his writings of life and travel in Central America, the Caribbean, Rhodesia, South Africa during the Second Boer War, and his coverage of the Salonika Front of the First World War have remained a vivid portrait of the time. His works include Gallegher (1891), The Rulers of the Mediterranean (1894), About Paris (1895), Our English Cousins (1894), Captain Macklin (1902), Once Upon a Time (1910), The Boy Scout (1914), The Red Cross Girl (1912) and Peace Manoeuvres (1914).