Frank Harris (14 February 1856 – 27 August 1931) While living with his older brother he was, for a year or more, a pupil at The Royal School, Armagh. 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 My Life and Loves. Harris was unhappy at the school and ran away within a year.

He emigrated to the United States in late 1869, arriving in New York City virtually penniless. The 14-year-old took a series of odd jobs to support himself, working first as a boot black, a porter, a general laborer, and a construction worker on the erection of the Brooklyn Bridge.

From 1908 to 1914 Harris concentrated on working as a novelist, authoring a series of popular books such as The Bomb, The Man Shakespeare, and The Yellow Ticket and Other Stories.

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. His attempts at playwriting were less successful: only Mr. and Mrs. Daventry (1900) (which may have been based on an idea by Oscar Wilde) was produced on the stage.

Death and legacy

Married three times, Harris died at 9 Rue de la Buffa in Nice aged 75 on 27 August 1931, of a heart attack. He was subsequently buried at Cimetière Sainte-Marguerite, adjacent to the Cimetière Caucade, in the same city.

Just after his death a biography written by Hugh Kingsmill (pseudonym of Hugh Kingsmill Lunn) was published.

Works

  • Dulce Domum London: Kegan Paul, 1886). Reprinted Articles from the Saturday Review"
  • Elder Conklin and Other Stories (1894)
  • Montes the Matador and Other Stories (London: Grant Richards, 1900)
  • The Bomb (1908)
  • The Man Shakespeare and his Tragic Life Story (London: Frank Palmer, 1909)
  • Shakespeare and His Love: A Play in Four Acts and an Epilogue (London: Frank Palmer, 1910)
  • The women of Shakespeare (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1912). Criticism.
  • Unpath'd Waters (1915). Stories.
  • The Yellow Ticket and Other Stories (London: Grant Richards, 1914)
  • The Veils of Isis, and Other Stories (1915)
  • England or Germany? (1915)
  • Contemporary Portraits... in four vols (1915–1923)
  • Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions (1916)
  • Stories of Jesus the Christ (1919)
  • My Life and Loves (1922–1927, 1931, 1954, 1963 (complete))
  • Undream'd of Shores (London, Grant Richards, 1924). Stories.
  • The Tom Cat: An Apologue (1928). Short story.
  • My Reminiscences as a Cowboy (1930)
  • Confessional (1930). Essays.
  • Pantopia: A Novel (1930)
  • Bernard Shaw (1931)
  • The Short Stories of Frank Harris, a Selection (1975). Elmer Gertz, ed.

References

Further reading

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  • Hugh Kingsmill, Frank Harris. Jonathan Cape, 1932; revised Biografia, 1987, with an introduction by Michael Holroyd
  • Philippa Pullar, Frank Harris. Hamish Hamilton, 1975.
  • Robert Brainard Pearsall, Frank Harris. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1970.
  • Stanley Weintraub (ed.), The Playwright and the Pirate, Bernard Shaw and Frank Harris: A Correspondence. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982.
  • Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography pages 242–244. Simon and Schuster, 1964
  • Kate Stephens, Lies and Libels of Frank Harris, New York, Antigone Press, 1929.
  • Elsa Gidlow, "Elsa, I Come With My Songs",1986: pages 271–2, 306–9, 83, 138–43, 145–6, 149-50
  • Extensive website by Alfred Armstrong
  • Extended bibliography at ibiblio.com
  • Esar Levine's Harris collection at Princeton
  • Biographical sketch, Crowley diary quotes
  • Frank Harris Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
  • Frank Harris Collection at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas