Clyde Brion Davis

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For the mayor of Rogersville, Tennessee, see Clyde Davis

Clyde Brion Davis (May 22, 1894–July 19, 1962) was an American author and freelance journalist active from the mid 1920s until his death. Davis is best known for his novels The Anointed and The Great American Novel, though he authored over fifteen books.

Clyde Brion Davis was born on May 22, 1894 in Unadilla, Nebraska to Charles Nelson and Isabel Brion Davis. A year later the Davis family moved to Missouri where Davis attended schools in Chillicothe and Kansas City. At fourteen Davis quit school and was employed in several jobs including printer’s apprentice, steam fitter’s helper, chimney sweep, electrician, detective, and journalist.

In 1916, Davis gained his first experience in journalism working with the Denver Times and Albuquerque Morning Journal. Davis acquired further experience in journalism writing for the army newspaper The Pontanezan Duckboard while serving in the United States Army Intelligence Corps (1917-1919) during World War I. Upon his return to the United States, Davis, with the exception of a few months working for the Burns Detective Agency, spent the years between 1919 and 1937 working for various newspapers, including: Denver Post (1919), Rocky Mountain News (1920-1922), San Francisco Examiner (1921), Seattle Post-Intelligencer (1930), and Buffalo Times (1931-1937).

Davis's fiction efforts were first published by a number of pulp magazines during the 1920s.

In 1926, he married artist and writer Martha Wirt. Their only child, David Brion Davis was born on February 16, 1927 in Denver, Colorado.

Davis resided in Hamburg, New York in the late 1930s. Davis wrote a number novels and short stories before the publication of his novel The Anointed in 1937. The Book of the Month Club chose The Anointed as its selection for August 1937 and MGM adapted the novel in 1945 to the MGM movie Adventurer starring Clark Gable and Greer Garson. Following the success of The Anointed, Davis left journalism for a career in creative writing. For the most part he focused on writing novels and short stories, other than a brief period of syndicate work in Europe for PM and Knight newspapers in 1941, two months in Hollywood as a screenwriter, and two years as an associate editor for Rinehart and Company (1943-1945). Davis was awarded a Huntington Hartford fellowship for the years 1956-1957. Over his career Davis wrote over twenty novels including The Great American Novel (1938), The Rebellion of Leo Maguire (1944), and his memoir The Age of Indiscretion (1950). His last novel, Shadow of a Day, was published posthumously.

In 1946, Davis and his family moved to Salisbury, Connecticut, where Davis was an active citizen (serving as Justice of the Peace between 1947 and 1957) until his death in Salisbury, Connecticut on July 19, 1962.

[edit] Partial Bibliography

Fiction

• The Anointed (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1937)
• The Great American Novel (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1938)
• Sullivan (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1940)
• Follow the Leader (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1942)
• The Rebellion of Leo McGuire (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1944)
• Stars Incline (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1946)
• Adventure (The World Publishing Company, New York, 1946)
• Jeremy Bell (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1947)
• Temper the Wind (The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 26, 1948) (A Gold Seal Novel)
• Playtime is Over (Arthur Barker, 1950)
• Thudbury: An American Comedy (J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1952)
• Unholy Uproar, a novel (J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1957)
• The Big Pink Kite (John Day Company, New York, 1960)
• Shadow of A Day (John Day Company, New York, 1963)

Non-Fiction

• The Arkansas (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1940) (Rivers of America Series)
• Nebraska Coast (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1939)
• The Age of Indiscretion (J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1950)

Short Stories

• "From Peter to Paul and Back", (Top-Notch - June 15, 1920)
• "The Hay Fever Handicap", (Argosy All-Story Weekly - September 21, 1929)
• "The Lumberjack Telegrapher", (Frontier Stories - January 1929)
• "Payday", (The American Magazine - Nov 1938)
• "Something for Nothing" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - August 1955)

Archives

• Clyde Brion Davis Papers. YCAL MSS 255. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

[edit] References

• Review of The Anointed, Time Magazine, August 2, 1937
• Review of the Great American Novel, Time Magazine, June 6, 1938
• iMBD Movie Database
• Turner Classic Movies
• David Brion Davis Papers, Yale University
• Fiction Mags Index
• Kellman, Steven G. "The Self-Begetting Great American Novel: Clyde Brion Davis's Melding of Traditions". Southwest Review 62(1977): 65-72.