Harris, Frank

Harris, Frank, 1856–1931, British-American author, b. Galway, Ireland. He studied at the Univ. of Kansas, became a U.S. citizen, and returning to England, edited successively a number of periodicals. A controversial figure in both his private life and his writings, he is primarily known for his scandalously frank and highly unreliable autobiography, My Life and Loves (3 vol., 1923–27), which was banned in the United States and England for many years. Much of his other work, such as his first novel, The Bomb (1908), shows a similar leaning toward eroticism. His biographical series Contemporary Portraits (1915–27), portraying such men as Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, and Kipling, many of whom he knew, and his biography of Oscar Wilde (1916) reveal his facility for maliciousness and imaginative speculation. Among his other works are the volume of short stories, Montes the Matador (1900), and the novel Great Days (1913).