Harris, Frank

James Thomas Harris was born in Galway, Ireland, in 1856, the fourth of five children. After the early death of their mother, Harris was raised largely by his siblings before his father, a commander in the British Coast Guard, sent him to school in Wales. Harris ran away from school in 1871 and sailed to America.

Between 1871 and 1872 Harris worked as a bootblack, construction worker, hotel clerk, and possibly as a cowboy. He traveled from New York to Chicago and ended up in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1872, where two of his brothers had settled. While Harris worked in his brothers' butcher shop and attended lectures at the University of Kansas he met and was influenced by Byron Smith, a promising young classics professor with an interest in Karl Marx. Harris placed enough importance on his association with Smith to change his name as an indication of a sort of rebirth. From that time on he was known as Frank Harris.

Harris briefly returned to England in 1875 before leaving for Europe where he began an educational tour. He began at the Sorbonne in Paris, and then moved on to Heidelberg, Göttingen, and Munich. In 1878 he married Florence Adams, of Brighton. Following her death ten months later, Harris took an extended tour of Italy, Greece, Austria, Russia, and Ireland.

Upon returning to England Harris actively pursued a writing career. After publishing a few reviews and articles he gained the post of editor at The Evening News in 1883. Three years later, he was appointed editor of the Fortnightly Review, a leading and respected journal. Harris married a wealthy widow, took a fine house, and entertained lavishly. He made a brief, unsuccessful foray into politics in 1889 as the Conservative candidate for South Hackney. While Harris enjoyed his success, wealth, and notoriety, he never really fit into the upper crust Victorian society he had entered. He and his wife legally separated in 1894 (they never divorced), the same year Harris was fired from the Fortnightly Review .

Harris' reaction to this change in fortune was to purchase the Saturday Review and turn it into a first rate literary magazine. He published his first book of short stories 1895. Despite the success of his book and magazine, Harris's personal financial situation was declining. In 1898 he sold the Review and, after failing in the hotel and restaurant business, published his second book of short stories in 1900. Over the next several years Harris pursued editorial jobs, traveled, and wrote. He attained some acclaim for The Women of Shakespeare (1911) and Oscar Wilde (1916). At the same time he was gaining notoriety as a German sympathizer and a man of loose moral character.

In 1914 Harris sailed to America with Helen (Nellie) O'Hara, his mistress since 1898. In America Harris continued writing, published two volumes of Contemporary Portraits, and edited the American Pearson's magazine. In 1921 he and Nellie became American citizens and shortly thereafter returned to Europe. Harris published the first volume of his autobiography in Berlin, however the volumes were seized by customs officials when he tried to bring them into France. In 1923 Harris and Nellie settled more or less permanently in Nice. He continued to write and publish short stories, and produced two more volumes of Contemporary Portraits . In 1927 his second wife died and he married Nellie O'Hara.

The remaining years of Harris' life were spent in ill health and reduced circumstances. He published On the Trail: Being My Reminiscences as a Cowboy and his final novel Pantopia in 1930. That same year he contracted to write a biography of George Bernard Shaw, based on his personal knowledge of the man and with Shaw's agreement. Harris died in 1931, shortly before the Shaw biography was published.

From the guide to the Frank Harris Collection TXRC02-A4., 1888-1955, (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center The University of Texas at Austin)