He joined the University of South Carolina as an associate professor of English in 1940, taking leave during the Second World War to teach for the United States Navy.

According to Jack P. Greene, it was the "single most comprehensive description ever undertaken of the cultural life of any segment of Britain's early modern American empire".

[1] Davis's reputation as a scholar was solidified through his extensive body of work, with Leo Lemay referring to him as "the greatest modern authority on early Southern literature".

[2]: 173  Similar views were offered by Louis D. Rubin Jr., praising the way he "decisively chartered and explored the colonial southern literary scene".

His mother was Margaret Josephine (née Wills), and his father was Henry Woodhouse Davis,[2]: 173  a Methodist minister across Virginia.

His paternal great-grandfather was Williams Thomas Davis, founding president of the Southern Female College in Petersburg, Virginia.

He received a Festschrift upon his retirement, titled Essays in Early Virginia Literature Honoring Richard Beale Davis.

In 1955, Davis was elected vice-president of the newly formed branch of the American Studies Association (ASA) for Kentucky and Tennessee.

[28] In 1952, Davis served as secretary of the American Literature section of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA).

[32] Following the creation of the Modern Language Association's Early American Literature Group in the 1960s, Davis was elected to sit on its executive committee.

[36] In 1939, Davis published his first book, a biography titled Francis Walker Gilmer: Life and Learning in Jefferson's Virginia.

[2]: 173  Gilmer, a lawyer, had been hired by Thomas Jefferson to secure European faculty members for the newly founded University of Virginia.

[39]: 617  G. Glenwood Clark praised its detailed index, but criticised the "gross carelessness in proof-reading, exasperating omission of words and phrases and frequent transpositions of whole sentences".

[37]: 422  Dumas Malone noted the benefit of having both sides of correspondence published in one place and praised the book's focus on both men and Gilmer's "poignant human story".

[2]: 174  In the same year, he entered the American Association for State and Local History's first manuscript competition, winning first place and a publication deal with the University of North Carolina Press.

[47] The general editors of the group were Henry A. Pochmann, Herbert L. Kleinfeld and Richard D. Rust, and the books were published intermittently from 1969 until 1989.

[48]: 338 In 1978, Davis published Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585–1763, a three-volume study of the Southern United States, covering topics such as religion, politics, science and literature.

[50]: 248  The citation for the award was as follows: This ambitious and rewarding work rediscovers for modern Americans a vital regional culture, demonstrating the human richness of the Colonial South.

The product of twenty-five years of exploration into neglected sources, this three-volume study will enlighten generations of readers.

[50]: 248 Davis received further accolades for the book, being awarded honorary degrees from the College of William and Mary as well as Eastern Kentucky University.

[13][52] In 1979, his Mercer University Lamar Memorial Lectures were published under the title A Colonial Southern Bookshelf: Reading in the Eighteenth Century.

In 2010, Lofaro published Southern Manuscript Sermons before 1800: A Bibliography, dedicating the work to Davis and noting him as one of four contributing editors.

[58] In 1986, J. Lasley Dameron and James W. Mathews edited a collection of essays dedicated to Davis, titled No Fairer Land: Studies in Southern Literature Before 1900.

[60]: 174 In December 1983, the Modern Language Association began awarding the annual Richard Beale Davis Prize for the best article published within the journal Early American Literature.