Richard Harding Davis was the greatest newspaper reporter of his era. He covered six wars, from the Spanish-American conflict to the German invasion of Belgium, risking his life under fire. Equally at home in the underworld or with royalty, his scoops reflected history. His short stories, plays and books secured him an enduring place in American literature.

Davis was born in Philadelphia in 1864. His mother was a famous and controversial writer, his father a newspaperman. At college he was a football star and sold his first article in his freshman year. But he failed to get a degree and was fired from his first newspaper job.

As a reporter on the Philadelphia Press. Davis' remarkable story of the Johnstown flood led to page one bylines. During an epidemic of roberies, he disguised himself as a safe-cracker and rounded up a gang of thieves for the police. In New York on Brisbane's Evening Sun, he created the first newspaper feature to run serially, and single short story soared him to national fame.

But Davis was restless at a desk and began his world-wide travels as a foreign correspondent. He covered the coronation of the Russian Czar, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and reported the Spanish pillage of Cuba. Theodore Roosevelt doubted that the worldly, elegant Davis could endure combat, but he proved his heroism during the bloody nightmare of the Spanish-American War. At the start of World War I he saw the Germans enter Brussels and stumbled on a military secret so dangerous that the Germans arrested him as a spy and ordered his immediate execution.

The life of Richard Harding Davis proves the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. His story is intensely dramatic in action, adventure and romance. In an era of sensational journalism he fought for unvarnished truth, pioneering the way for the honest, objective newsmen of today.

From the dust jacket