Perhaps the leading foreign correspondent of his time, surely the most published, Harold Frederic provided readers of the New York Times with an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the intricacies of European political, social, scientific, and artistic life. Unflinchingly honest, keenly perceptive, well connected, and discriminating, Frederic traversed Europe from his base in London providing the kind of cabled correspondence that distinguishes journalists from mere reporters.

Frederic left New York an awkward, uneasy, intense--even overly serious--and energetic young man from upstate New York who asked editors about the social etiquette aboard steamships, tipping, and the like. He broadened with the work in London, dashing into the heart of a cholera epidemic in France, covering the great and once great in Europe, and touring Russia to investigate the treatment of Jews. At his death, Frederic was considered one of the best conversationalists, clubmen, and journalists in London. Along the way...