author
Charles Inman Barnard
1850–1942
An American journalist and longtime Paris correspondent, he turned eyewitness reporting into vivid, human stories about life in Europe. His best-known book captures Paris at the opening of World War I with the immediacy of a diary.
1 Audiobook
Paris War Days: Diary of an American
by Charles Inman Barnard
About the author
Born in 1850 and dying in 1942, Charles Inman Barnard was an American writer and journalist whose career was closely tied to international reporting. Contemporary editions of his work identify him as a Harvard-trained writer, Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune, president of the Association of the Foreign Press in Paris, and chairman of the Harvard Club of Paris.
Barnard is best remembered for Paris War Days: Diary of an American (1914), a firsthand account of Paris during the first months of World War I. Rather than trying to tell the whole story of the war, the book focuses on the city's mood, daily life, and the atmosphere of mobilization, which gives it much of its lasting appeal.
Available library and public-domain records confirm his place as a published author, though detailed biographical material about his personal life is limited in the sources I found. Even so, his surviving work offers a clear picture of a seasoned foreign correspondent writing from the heart of a historic moment.