Harris, Frank, properly James Thomas Harris 1856-1931
Irish writer and journalist

He was born, according to his autobiography, in Galway, but according to his own later statement, in Tenby, Dyfed. He ran away to New York at the age of 15 and, after various jobs, began studying law in 1874 at the University of Kansas. Returning to England about 1876, he entered the newspaper world. He had a considerable impact on Fleet Street as editor of the Fortnightly Review, Saturday Review, Vanity Fair and of the Evening News, with its provocative headlines and sensationalism. His best known work is his boastful and unreliable autobiography My Life and Loves (4 vols, 1923-27), which was banned for pornography. He is also remembered for his Contemporary Portraits (1915-30), as well as biographies of Oscar Wilde (1920) and George Bernard Shaw (1931), some novels, short stories and plays, and two works on Shakespeare.