Clyde Brion Davis papers

Clyde Brion Davis, American journalist and novelist, was born in Unadilla, Nebraska, to Charles Nelson and Isabel Brion Davis in 1894. A year later the Davis family moved to Missouri where Davis attended schools in Chillicothe and Kansas City. At fourteen Davis quit school and began a series of odd jobs including printer's apprentice, steam fitter's helper, chimney sweep, and electrician.

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 married Martha Wirt in 1926 and the following year the couple had their only child, David Brion Davis. A native of Denver, Colorado, Martha Wirt (1904?-1952) attended the University of Denver, the Denver Conservatory of Music, and the Art Students League in New York.

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 into the movie "Adventure" (1945) 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).

Martha Wirt Davis was also an artist and writer who published under her own name and the pseudonym Wirt Van Arsdale. She wrote a number of short stories and essays for magazines and in 1951 Doubleday published her mystery novel The Professor Knits a Shroud.

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 1962. Martha Wirt Davis died of a heart attack in 1952.