David Rowland Francis

David Rowland Francis 1850-1927, U.S. Secretary of the Interior (1896-97), b. Richmond, Ky. He established a large grain business in St. Louis, entered politics, and served (1885-89) as mayor in a reform administration and later (1889-93) as governor of Missouri. As a member of President Cleveland's cabinet, he obtained a presidential proclamation setting aside millions of acres as forest reserves. Francis was a leading promoter and official of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1903-4. He became ambassador to Russia in 1916 and remained at his post after the Russian Revolution in efforts to keep Russia united with the Allies. He wrote Russia from the American Embassy (1921, repr. 1970); his memoirs and letters were published in 1928.

Steegmuller, Francis (1906–94),author of literary and biographical studies, including Flaubert and Madame Bovary (1939), Maupassant: A Lion in the Path (1949), The Two Lives of James Jackson Jarves (1951), Apollinaire, Poet Among the Painters (1963), and Cocteau (1970); lesser critical studies under the pseudonym Byron Steel; crime novels under the pseudonym David Keith; and light fiction, including The Christening Party (1961), Stories and True Stories (1972), and Silence at Salerno (1978). French Follies and Other Follies (1946) collects sketches from The New Yorker on the author's experiences in France and the U.S. Stories and True Stories (1972) collects articles and fiction. He also translated and edited many important works. His wife was Shirley Hazzard.

Mallett, David (or David Malloch), (?1705–65), Scottish author, who wrote the well-known ballad ‘William and Margaret’, The Excursion (1728, a poem), and various tragedies, including Elvira (1763). He collaborated with Thomson in the masque of Alfred (1740), wrote a Life of Francis Bacon (1740), and edited Bolingbroke's Works (5 vols, 1754).