Frank Harris - Life, Select bibliography

Literary editor and journalist, born in Galway, Co Galway, W Ireland. He travelled to New York as a teenager, and worked at a series of menial jobs before returning to Europe. As a journalist he gained a considerable reputation on the London literary scene, editing the Evening News (1882–6), the Fortnightly Review (1886–94), and Saturday Review (1894–8). His notoriety as a braggart and liar was epitomized in My Life and Loves (4 vols, 1922–7). Other works include short stories, studies of Shakespeare, biographies of Wilde and Shaw, and Contemporary Portraits (1915–23).

Frank Harris (February 14, 1856 - August 27, 1931) was an Irish-American author, editor, journalist and publisher who consorted with many well-known figures of his day.

Life

Frank Harris was born James Thomas Harris in Galway, Ireland, February 14, 1856 of Welsh parents. At the age of 12 he was sent to Wales to continue his education as a boarder at the Ruabon Grammar School in Denbighshire, a time he was to remember later in his three volume memoirs "My Life and Loves" (1923-1927). Harris was unhappy at the school and ran away within a year.

Emigrating to the US in late 1869, he studied at the University of Kansas. Returning to England in 1882, Harris first came to general notice as the editor of a series of London papers including the Evening News, the Fortnightly Review and the Saturday Review, the latter being the highpoint of his journalistic career, with H.

Harris returned to New York during World War I.

Harris became an American citizen in April, 1921. In 1922 he traveled to Berlin to publish his best-known work, his autobiography My Life and Loves (published in four volumes between 1922 and 27). It is notorious for its graphic descriptions of Harris's purported sexual encounters and for its exaggeration of the scope of his adventures, his prowess and his role in history.

A 1923 attempt to sell the book in Paris caused it to be seized by French authorities.

Harris also wrote short stories and novels, two books on Shakespeare, a series of biographical sketches in five volumes under the title Contemporary Portraits and biographies of his friends Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw.

The Frank Harris Publishing Company was founded in New York in the mid-to-late 1920s to promote and distribute his works in America. Esar Levine, whose Harris collection is housed at Princeton University, was one of his employees and disciples. Harris married three times. ships drifting past like black ghosts in the misty air, and the purple sky above never so dark as the river, the river with its shifting lights of ruby and emerald and topaz, like an oily, opaque serpent gliding with a weird life of its own..."-Harris unsuccessfully encouraging Oscar Wilde to go abroad and avoid the risk of a trial.

Select bibliography

The Short Stories of Frank Harris, a Selection (1975). The best of Harris's biographical works which, while not entirely accurate, conveys very well its author's great regard for his friend. Harris's autobiography in its first publication as a single book, with many typographical errors corrected and copious footnotes provided by editor John F.