Clyde Brion Davis
Clyde Brion Davis was an American author and journalist born on May 22, 1894, in Unadilla, Nebraska. Raised in a family that operated a store and later moved to Missouri, he developed a passion for art and writing from a young age, ultimately leaving high school to pursue evening classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. His early career included various odd jobs and writing for a military newspaper during World War I. After the war, Davis transitioned into journalism, working for numerous newspapers across the United States. He began his novel-writing career in the 1930s with his first book, "The Anointed," published in 1937.
Davis's literary work earned him recognition for his ironic humor and relatable characters, though he received mixed reviews from critics. His novels often explored themes of self-improvement and the American experience, resonating with contemporary readers despite some criticism of their narrative style. While Davis's writing was praised by notable authors like John Steinbeck, he did not receive major literary awards, and many of his books eventually fell out of print. He passed away on July 19, 1962, in Salisbury, Connecticut, leaving behind a legacy that offers insights into mid-twentieth-century American life.
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Clyde Brion Davis
Fiction Writer
- Born: May 22, 1894
- Birthplace: Unadilla, Nebraska
- Died: July 19, 1962
- Place of death: Salisbury, Connecticut
Biography
Clyde Brion Davis was born on May 22, 1894, at Unadilla, Nebraska. His parents, Charles N. Davis and Isabel Brion Davis, operated a store in Unadilla. They moved to Chillicothe, Missouri, in 1895. While his father ran a local sawmill, Davis attended area schools, moving west to Kansas City for high school. Davis disliked academic classes but enjoyed art and gymnastics courses. When he was fourteen years old, he quit high school. While taking evening classes at the Kansas City Art Institute, he learned printing skills as an apprentice during the day. Davis secured a position in The Kansas City Star’s art department, supplementing his income with such odd jobs as cleaning chimneys, harvesting fruit, and fixing furnaces.
Davis wrote for a military newspaper, Pontanezen Duckboard, during his World War I service with the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in France (from 1917 to 1919). Coming home in 1919, he briefly worked for the Burns Detective Agency before starting a journalism career in editorial and reporting positions with newspapers in Denver, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico; San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; and Buffalo, New York. Davis married Martha Wirt on April 20, 1926. Their only child, David Brion Davis, later became a Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning historian.
By the 1930’s, Davis began writing novels. He published his first book, The Anointed, in 1937, because his editor, William M. Sloane, had rescued the unsolicited work after Davis had discarded it. Davis reported for the Knight and PM newspaper syndicates in Europe in 1941, but he chose to focus on earning income from fiction, not journalism, after he returned to the U.S. Davis briefly wrote scripts in Hollywood, and his publisher, Rinehart & Company, hired him as an associate editor from 1943 to 1945. His experiences with journalism and the place he lived inspired several of his books.
Davis’s nonfiction book The Age of Indiscretion emphasized positive aspects of American culture as a response to literary figures, particularly T. S. Eliot, who had a pessimistic viewed the of the U. S. and believed that Americans were educationally and artistically deficient. Davis edited short stories in Eyes of Boyhood for young readers, and he published stories and articles in The Atlantic Monthly, Holiday, and Writer. After suffering a heart attack, Davis died on July 19, 1962, at Salisbury, Connecticut, where he had lived since 1946.
Critics praised Davis’s literary skills, ironic humor, and creation of effective narrators. John Steinbeck admired Davis’s writing. Some reviewers criticized Davis’s narratives and considered them monotonous. Most contemporary readers, though, found Davis’s writing appealing because he depicted familiar American characters and their misadventures while showing their individual desires to improve themselves. The Book-of-the-Month Club selected several of Davis’s novels as recommended books. His first novel inspired the movie Adventure (1945). Although he received the 1956-1957 Huntington Hartford fellowship, Davis never won any significant literary awards. His books sold well but went out of print. Few scholars have analyzed Davis’s work, though some have cited his writing as an example of an honest portrayal of mid-twentieth American life.