H.L. Davis

H.L. Davis (1894-1960). Courtesy Wikipedia.

Harold Lenoir Davis
Nationality	American
Notable work(s)	Honey in the Horn
Notable award(s)	Pulitzer Prize Guggenheim Fellowship

Harold Lenoir Davis (October 18, 1894 - October 31, 1960) was an American poet and novelist.

Life

Youth

Davis was born in Nonpareil, Douglas co., Oregon, in the Umpqua River Valley, and lived in Roseburg, Oregon, in his early years. His father was a teacher, and the family moved frequently as he took up different teaching positions.

They moved to Antelope, Oregon in 1906, and two years later they were in The Dalles, where his father was now a principal. In 1912 Davis graduated from high school there. He held various short-term jobs, with the county, with Pacific Power and Light, and in a local bank. He also worked as a railroad timekeeper and with a survey party near Mount Adams.

Writing career

His earliest published poems appered in the April 1919 Poetry, edited by Harriet Monroe. These were 11 poems published together under the title Primapara. Later that year they won the magazine's Levinson Prize, worth $200. Davis also received a letter of praise from poet Carl Sandburg.

Davis continued to publish poems in the magazine throughout the 1920s, and also sold some poems to H.L. Mencken's American Mercury. Mencken encouraged him to begin writing prose.

In 1926, Davis and musician James Stevens privately published a small booklet, Status Rerum: A manifesto upon the present condition of northwest literature. Although only a few copies were printed, the booklet attracted notice because of its bluntness and invective against the local literary scene of Portland. Robinson Jeffers memorably described the pamphlet as a "rather grimly powerful wheel to break butterflies on."

Together with his new wife, the former Marion Lay of The Dalles, Davis moved to Seattle in August 1928. There he increased his literary efforts. His prose began appearing in The American Mercury in 1929. These were picturesque but hardly complimentary sketches of The Dalles and Eastern Oregon. One of the earliest was entitled "A Town in Eastern Oregon", a historical sketch of The Dalles. It caused quite a controversy in the region for its irreverence.

In 1932, Davis was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. The award allowed him to move to Jalisco, Mexico, where he lived for 2 years, concentrating on his writing. There he completed the novel Honey in the Horn, about southern Oregon pioneer life. It is a coming-of-age tale set in the early 20th century. It was well reviewed by writers such as Robert Penn Warren, although New Yorker critic Clifton Fadiman did not like it. The following spring the book won the Pulitzer Prize, and is the only Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to an Oregon born author. Davis did not go to New York to receive the Pulitzer in person, saying he did not want to put himself on exhibit.

The Davises bought a small ranch near Napa, California. There Davis wrote short stories as his primary source of income, publishing them in such magazines as Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post. He continued to work on novels. His 2nd novel, Harp of a Thousand Strings, appeared in 1941. The long interval from his Pulitzer-winning 1st novel meant that his 2nd did not receive the notice it would have earlier. In fact, although Davis continued to improve as a writer, none of his later efforts received the attention of Honey in the Horn.

Davis was also undergoing crises in his life. He was divorced in 1943. He also changed publishers, from Harper & Brothers to William Morrow & Co., apparently because of a long-running dispute over royalty payments.

Later life

Over the next 10 years, he published 3 more novels and a collection of earlier short stories. His 4th novel, Winds of Morning, was well received and became a Book of the Month Club selection. In 1953 he remarried, to Elizabeth Martin del Campo. As a result of arteriosclerosis, his left leg was amputated. He suffered chronic pain, but continued to write. In 1960 he died of a heart attack in San Antonio, Texas.

Writing

Although often considered a regional novelist, Davis rejected that evaluation. He undoubtedly used regional themes, but contended that he did so in the service of the universal. Influences on his work can be found in a wide range of American and European literature. His prose is considered wry, ironic, and cryptic. His stories are realistic, without the romantic stereotypes expected of "western" fiction. The landscape is a major component of his novels.

Recognition

In 1919 Davison won Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize.

Davis won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Honey in the Horn, the only Pulitzer given to a native Oregonian. Honey in the Horn also won the Harper Prize for best 1st novel.

Publications

Poetry

• Proud Riders, and other poems. New York & London: Harper, 1942.
• Selected Poems (edited by Orvis C. Burmaster, with introduction by Thomas Hornsby Ferril). Boise, ID: Ahsahta Press, 1978. ISBN 0-916272-07-9

Novels

• Honey in the Horn. New York & London: Harper, 1935. ISBN 0-89301-155-X
• Harp of a Thousand Strings. New York, Morrow, 1947; London: Cassell, 1949.
• Beulah Land. New York: Morrow, 1949.
• Winds of Morning. New York: Morrow, 1952. ISBN 0-8371-5785-4
• The Distant Music. New York: Morrow, 1957. ISBN 0-89174-045-7
• Kettle of Fire. New York: Morrow, 1959. ISBN 1-299-07362-X

Short fiction

• Team Bells Woke Me, and other stories. New York: Morrow, 1953, ISBN 0-8371-7125-3

Non-fiction

• Status Rerum: A manifesto upon the present condition of Northwestern literature (with James Stevens). The Dalles, OR: privately published, 1927.

Collected editions

• Collected Essays and Short Stories. Moscow, ID: University of Idaho Press, 1986.
• Davis Country: H.L. Davis's northwest (edited by Brian Booth & Glen A. Love). Corvalis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2009.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Poems by H.L. Davis

1. The Rain-crow

External links

Poems

• "October: 'The old eyes'"
• H.L. Davis in Poetry: A magazine of verse, 1912-1922: "The Sweet-tasting," "Running Vines in a Field," "A Field by the River," "In the Field," "The Gypsy Girl," "The Spirit," "My Step-grandfather," "Oakland Pier: 1918," "The Old Are Sleepy," "Flags," "The Valley Harvest," "In This Wet Orchard," "Stalks of Wild Hay," "Baking Bread," "The Rain-crow," "The Threshing-floor," "From a Vineyard," "The Market-gardens," "October: 'The old eyes'," "To the River Beach," "Open Hands," "Dog-fennel"

Books

• H.L. Davis at Amazon.com

About

• Notable Oregonians: H.L. Davis]
• H.L. Davis in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• "H.L. Davis: Bard of the Oregon landscape
• Discussion of his work
• The Literary Encyclopedia
• A brief biography
• First Edition of Honey in the Horn (1936 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
• A large collection of Davis's manuscripts and photographs reside at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.