Francis Whiting Halsey was an American journalist, editor and historian.

Halsey was a prolific author and editor. His original works included travel writing (Two Months Abroad, collecting his reportage for the Tribune on the Paris World's Fair (1878)), New York State history (The Old New York Frontier (1901), The Pioneers of Unadilla Village, 1784-1840 (1902), and a number of articles), literary criticism (Our Literary Deluge And Some of Its Deeper Waters (1902)) and family history (extended introduction to Thomas Halsey of Hertfordshire, England and Southampton, Long Island (1895)).
As a compiler and editor, he assembled several enormous collections of, inter alia, famous speeches, prose literary works, travel narratives and writings about American history. (See the list of works infra.) His major achievement was the ten-volume Literary Digest History of the World War, consisting largely of skillfully collated and rewritten newspaper accounts and official documents, enhanced by a plethora of photographs. Publication began within a year after the conclusion of the conflict. While the work obviously is a "first draft of history", it is a good one that can be read with profit even today. The author did not, however, live to see it to completion. He died while at work on the final volume.

(wikipedia)