author
Franklyn Pierre Davis
1868–1932
A physician, editor, and anthologist, he wrote practical medical books and also spent years gathering newspaper poetry into annual volumes he treated as a snapshot of American public feeling.
1 Audiobook
How to Collect a Doctor Bill
by Franklyn Pierre Davis
About the author
Born in 1868 and remembered as Dr. Franklyn Pierre Davis, he worked as a physician in Oklahoma and wrote across a surprisingly wide range of subjects. Surviving records and library listings connect him to medical works such as How to Collect a Doctor Bill and Impotency, Sterility, and Artificial Impregnation.
He is also known for editing the long-running Davis' Anthology of Newspaper Verse series. Those annual collections brought together poems first printed in newspapers, and Davis described the project as a kind of barometer of public sentiment, which gives his work an unusual place between literature, journalism, and social history.
Because readily available biographical sources are sparse, many personal details about his life are hard to confirm from reliable online records alone. He died in 1932, but his books and anthologies still circulate through digital libraries and reprints, keeping his name alive for readers interested in early 20th-century medicine and popular verse.