author

Oscar K. (Oscar King) Davis

1866–1932

Known as a journalist as well as a novelist, this American writer moved easily between reporting on major public events and telling stories shaped by international politics and social change. His surviving work hints at a keen interest in the United States’ place in the world, especially in the Pacific and in Japan.

1 Audiobook

At the Emperor's Wish: A Tale of the New Japan

At the Emperor's Wish: A Tale of the New Japan

by Oscar K. (Oscar King) Davis

About the author

Oscar K. Davis, also listed as Oscar King Davis, was born in 1866 and died in 1932. Library and archival records identify him as an American journalist, and material connected with Theodore Roosevelt shows that he was active in political and publishing circles in the early 1900s.

He is remembered in part for reporting on the 1907 Haywood trial as a senior correspondent for The New York Times. He also wrote books, including Our Conquests in the Pacific (1899) and At the Emperor's Wish: A Tale of the New Japan (1905), a novel set against the social changes of modernizing Japan.

For audiobook listeners, Davis is interesting because his work sits at the meeting point of reportage and storytelling. Even from the small record that survives online, he comes across as a writer drawn to public affairs, empire, and the ways large historical forces reshape everyday lives.