Frank Harris

when i was 15 ( i'm 49 now) my girlfriend, whom i was almost having sex with, handed me a book of cubic proportions and said " here, read this" It was My Life and Loves. i read it and "re-read" some parts and this man became my hero,well, for a year or so. Anyway, I had completely forgotten him and then i discovered your site. so, what are you saying ? that he was economical with the truth, seriously, an excellent site i love it , in fact i will order the book thru your site and i am looking forward to re-appraising this magnificent modest and honest work. best wishes paul

I have a question, can anyone tell me who the main characters are in the story "A Mad Love: The Strange Story of a Musician"? I cannot find the book where I live to check this on my own. Thank you so very much!

I write in the aftermath of the Jeffrey Archer case, which brought a fantasy life under legal scrutiny. It is very hard to distinguish fact from fantasy in Harris: a thing may be true despite the fact that Harris says it is true. Robert Sherard's detailed attack on Harris' book on Wilde shows Harris at his worse, but Sherard's own books on Wilde are prodigal with the truth.

I was first interested in Frank Harris when I took a graduate seminar from Prof. Shattuck at the U.of Illinois in 1955 when I was finishing my doctorate. He gave two witty lectures on three Irishmen writers: Bernard Shaw 1854, Oscar Wilde & Frank Harris, both 1856. My interest was piqued further when I moved my family to Lawrence, Kansas where I taught theatre & drama at the University of Kansas 1957-65. Gossip was still being bruited about Harris and his sexual encounters with local women. One, Kate Stephens, daughter of a highly respected county judge in Lawrence.

I have been slogging through the first volume of Harris's "Life and Loves" and had almost completed it when I discovered this site. I had been feeling quite oppressed because I had been taking everything Harris said as gospel. Then I discovered on this site how Harris was a well known exaggerater, I nearly busted a gut laughing. I had suspected that his string of outstanding achievements were a little too good to be true. Thanks for the site, you punctured Harris's pretentions with great wit.

The great American writer, H.L. Mencken, met Frank Harris sometime in the early 20th century, and made the remark that Harris reminded reminded him of the character that tied virgins to railway tracks in the plays he saw in his youth, "The Perils of Pauline" or those similer. Mencken seemed to have been favorably impressed by Harris, something hard to do.

Last year, not having a copy of the final volume of My Life and Loves, I went to the British Library and requested a copy. I was impressed by the fact that it's still considered dubious enough that it has to be read at restricted material tables, but even more impressed when I received - instead of Harris - two bound volumes of 1950s soft porn magazines. I think it was a magazine called Brazen. If not, it should have been. Never did get round to Volume 5.

I am going to be portraying Frank Harris in Tom Stoppard's play, 'The Invention of Love', here in New York at The Lincoln Center. I find the information on this site to be fascinating and very helpful. Thank you!

To my humble mind, and it is indeed a humble one at that, this Website makes life worth living. I strongly suspect that John Stuart Mill would have approved.

It seems to me that Frank has been undeservedly forgotten by the world. As a character he is fascinating and mysterious figure. His books are far and away the best biographies I've ever read - so few people these days actually say what they think about their subjects, but Frank never seemed afraid to tell you what he thought of the people he was writing about!