Frank Harris

Born under the name James Thomas Harris, Writer Frank Harris’s (1856-1931) bold character shone through his life and work as a novelist, playwright, biographer, and editor. Harris’s audacious approach to writing biographies, such as The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life-Story, Contemporary Portraits, and My Life and Loves, sparked attention from critics, who often saw the lines separating decency from obscenity and fiction from nonfiction in his work blurred at best.

Harris was born in Ireland, but moved to the United States in 1871. Harris went to the University of Kansas, passed the bar examination in 1875, and went to both the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and the University of Goettingen in 1878. Harris left the University of Heidelberg after “A brawl ended his sojourn there …”

Harris wrote for the Spectator and Fortnightly Review, and was the editor of the Evening News, Vanity Fair, Modern Society, and Hearth and Home. Harris’s writings include The Bomb, Unpath’d Waters, Montes the Matador and Other Stories, Mr. and Mrs. Daventry, The Bucket Shop, Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions, and England or Germany?

Source citation:

Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2004. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2004.