Product Description
Volume: 1Publisher: Paris, The author [priv. print.]Publication date: 1922Subjects: Harris, Frank, 1855-1931Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

kindle "literary classics" edition incomplete
The Kindle Literary Classics $3.99 edition of Frank Harris's MY LIFE AND LOVES is short and seriously incomplete, probably one volume out of the five original ones, which are on sale separately on Kindle. Don't buy it. I've informed Amazon.

Herodotus of His Times
Incredible read and yes, Harris did know everyone. He was vain , boastful and ever ready to toot his own horn BUT he tells exactly what he thought. His descriptions of his amatory adventures are spot-on and nobody who has ever been with MORE than one woman would doubt a word(!).

Caution : you should read more than the juicy bits as you will glean information on the tenor of the times and how a guy from nowhere climbed the ladder of success in the cut-throat world of literature. His work on Shakespeare, which is good, cannot hold a candle to this splendid autobiography. Scoundrels always charm us and Frank was one of those delightful scoundrels that mesmerized the dinner table. Ever anxious to deflate the imperious, he illuminates the warts of the rich and snooty.

I'd require this in any course on 20th C manners and morals. Hypocrites need not apply!

My life and loves
Iread this book over 40 years ago and wanted to refresh my memory.Although it is erotic it also is a depiction of life in the 19th and early 20th centuries in England and the U.S.The author was obviously a well educated person and a bit boastful but the descriptions of life are most vivid.I saw a movie of part of the book and it starred Jack Lemmon playing the part of Frank Harris.I loved the story!!

The Invented Fatasies Of An Oversexed Geek!!!
This book reads like a 14 year old 's collection of sexual fantasies. The author describes his various sexual encounters in great detail (yawn) but a smart reader wil probably suspect that all the author did was masurbate excessively throughout his entire life. This book is very quaint considering the amount of pornography that can be found in movies and on the Internet today.I give this book 5 stars because I have read that to masturbate successfully one just needs a fast hand and an overactive imagination which I suspect this writer has.Not that I have any "first hand "(no pun intended ) knwledge of the subject!!!!

No doubt about it, Harris was a liar
Okay, so we all agree Harris was a liar.Moving right along, it is an incredible piece of fiction, autobiography, and now history.I have heard his cowboy story quoted as fact by ethnic studies instructors, watched the plays of Wilde and pondered both of their distorted lives, wondered about his comments on the Churchill's, etc.

Harris, however pathological, is, for the first two or three books, a remarkable read.I doubt that many read every word, and now could never imagine reading ALL of it.However, if you want to understand something of 19th Century English literature and life, I think you need to read at least half.Just expect to be very weary of Frank Harris after a bit.As Wilde famously observed: "Frank Harris has been received in all the great houses - Once."

Ponder the change in lives if nothing else.This work was scandalous when it came out.In the age of internet porn it is now mostly a historical curiosity.In time it will dwindle to the point where it will disappear. Harris ended up in Hell, if it exists at all.Probably one of his tortures would be to watch memory of his existence fade. Whatever happened to Ralph Ginzburg anyway... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Harris was a very intelligent man - excellent material on 1880-1930
Harris was born 1855; died 1931. He was famous as an editor (and helped publish H G Wells) - as famous as Whistler, said Wells. He wrote about twenty books.

This large book was published in five volumes originally, starting in 1925 - with censorship difficulties as with Lady Chatterley's Lover. I suspect this was to try to make money: like Wilde he was somewhat isolated in Europe. It's much more interesting than most people would guess from the reputation: it includes much material on middlebrow people like Maeterlinck, Kipling; and political stuff on Bismarck, Russo-Turkish War, Rhodes, Jameson Raid, Boer War, Congo atrocities etc, Boer War, First World War, and people like Meredith and Wilde and Wells and Shaw; plenty on Shakespeare; and accounts of visits to America, Greece, Germany, Africa, Japan, China and other places.

Erotic encounters are interlarded here and there and include a negress called Sophy and Indian, Japanese, Chinese, and young, women. He states [as an introduction, just before printing a letter from a lesbian] that he has no experience in perversions, being wholly taken up with normal desires. The whole writing style is different, mainly because there's no established vocabulary - 'my powerful instrument' type of thing.

It's hard to tell how much is actually true. Some editions have footnotes of instances when Harris' meetings or exchanges with anyone of significance have been challenged. Some incidents are known to me to appear elsewhere, and could have been copied, as in e.g. Whistler's comment on looking at Beardsley's drawings, or an apparently face to face statement by Wilde on how he learnt drama technique by studying French plays. Did he really talk to Bismarck? On the other hand, when Harris gives supposedly verbatim conversations with Carlyle and Dowden and Mallock, or recounts his experiences with Alfred Russel Wallace or Bret Harte or Bunsen, one feels these people aren't from the common point of view stellar enough to warrant invention.

Much on Christ, Shakespeare. Also on literary influences post-Dickens and pre-say 1900; his modern style makes it easy to miss the fact that the authors he talks of, e.g. Carlyle, Browning, were living to him. Harris is unusually cosmopolitan - he lists John Hay, an American of Pike County Ballads, Whitman, Emerson, and others; and also Henry George and radical journalists, like Harden in Germany whom I've not heard of before.

He actually knew and met Alfred Russel Wallace of evolution theory, and comments on 'Forty-five Years of Registration Statistics.' 'proving vaccination.. useless and dangerous'. He met Ehrlich, of STD (VD then) fame. Harris complimented a German scientist for not patenting his inventions, unlike Alfred Nobel.

He said, of the Belgian Congo atrocities, Britain 'could have stopped it with a word'. The First World War & war against Russia was 'for money'.. 'series of diabolical crimes.. committed during the last half-century almost without protest..' A very interesting an lively book, full of independent judgments. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Life Imitates Art.....a Little Too Much !
I started reading Frank Harris' memoirs with a great deal of interest.He'd come to Chicago as a fresh-faced, enthusiastic Irish kid, "straight off the boat", but through hard work and personal service had commended himself to some Westerners with whom he soon became partners.Pretty good for a hotel bellhop !But still, maybe it could have been true.Then, he rode off for eighteen months' adventures in Texas and New Mexico, purchasing, raiding, and driving cattle, sprinkled with gunfights with the Indians, duels and horseraces with Mexican grandees, and the hijinks of bored cowboys.Miraculous escapes and great physical feats abound.As I read, I began to feel that some o' these here scenes was a mite familiar.Sure enough, I decided, I'd definitely spotted them in Hollywood movies.Frank Harris' life resembled a movie, sure as shootin'.At last I reached the point where after escaping a possible Indian attack, as he and his companions drove a huge herd north through Texas, he intoned that just a few years later, General Custer and his men were wiped out by the same Indians close to that very spot.Well, sir, I may be a sucker, but I ain't that big of a one !As I recall from my school days, the Little Big Horn was way up in Montana, or it used to be.Shoot, I guess you never can tell.But still, I got plumb suspicious.I looked on the internet.Seems Frank Harris had raised a few doubts in others' minds too.Maybe because at the time when he said he was fightin' Indians and ridin', ropin' and shootin', he was only around five years old !Course I could be underestimatin' him.

If you don't take this as a gen-u-wine autobiography, but just as a cowboy tale, it can be enjoyable.The old fashioned attitudes to Indians and Mexicans might make you feel more than a little weary, but that was show biz, back in 1930, when he wrote.And, you might recognize a few scenes because after all, Frank Harris' life was turned into one or two films.Or was it that cowboy films turned into his life ?I give up. ... Read more

Product Description
Second-longest of the books in Mr. Harris? legendaryseries, this tale stars young Frank, from his Irish boyhoodto his stay in the wilds of America, with a back-handed nodat so many of the improving tomes for boys, popular inHarris' youth.My Life was a huge success, becoming synonymous withdecadence in fiction and banned everywhere. Also notable:the way Mr. Harris really, really ticked off the estate ofThomas Carlyle, and, given the subject matter, Harris' oddstance on masturbation. ... Read more

Product Description
Hugh Kingsmill wrote over thirty books, and his highly praised biography of Frank Harris is one of four of his books to be reissued by Faber Finds, to mark the sixtieth anniversary of his death.'An extremely fine piece of work . . . out of this candid recognition of weakness there comes a living portrait which has made at least one reader who found Frank Harris's personality violently antipathetic understand why a great many people adored him and forgave him.' Rebecca West Daily Telegraph'Hugh Kingsmill's biography of Frank Harris . . . is adroit, rather malicious and very entertaining. Little did poor Harris realise, when he was busy roaring his own praises at this young man, that he would be served up with such sauce.' J. B. Priestley Evening Standard'Kingsmill's biography is neither an adulation nor an attack: it is a record of a 'queer cuss', flashy, magnetic, enormously gifted with everything save principle . . . [Harris] skilfully hunts down the spoor of probable fact in the extraordinary tangle of romantic make-believe which Harris planted over his own tracks.' Observer ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Skewering of a Mountebank
Alas, poor Kingsmill, we hardly knew thee.Hugh Kingsmill is one of those delightful, witty writers that the British turned out in embarrassed abundance during the middle of the 20th Century.Unfortunately, except among such enlightened connoisseurs as Michael Holroyd, Kingsmill is completely forgotten today.And he shouldn't be!This book is a good brief in Kingsmill's defense.

Frank Harris was a literary con artist who, amazingly enough, dominated Shakespearean criticism in the early 20th Century.Kingsmill was initially one of his acolytes until he saw through the old fraud.And so, we have this delightfully malevolent biography of the "Rake of Modern Letters."Here's a sample (which was also the subject of a famous Max Beerbohm caricature):

The lunch began, and Harris and the Duke were soon in friendly talk, when suddenly Harris's deep voice sounded above the general conversation.

'No, my dear Duke, I know nothing of the joys of homosexuality.You must speak to my friend Oscar about that.'

A profound silence descended upon the room.

'And yet,' Harris mused, in more subdued but still reverberating tones, 'if Shakespeare had asked me, I would have had to submit.'

Truly, truly awful.Go get this book! ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Fiction based on history -- superb!
This is the story of an immigrant who gets drawn into period (late 1800s) anarchy in the U.S.

Here, one reads about the heinous maltreatment of the immigrant labor force by the robber barons and other rapscallions. The narrator ultimately travels to Chicago where the maltreatment of these workerscomes to a head when a bomb is thrown in The Haymarket Square, killing some (corrupt) policemen.

As one reads this excellent story, s/he is reminded of similar works such as "The Jungle" (Upton Sinclair), or, "The Black Flag: A Look Back at the Strange Case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti" (Brian Jackson). However, "The Bomb" is, of course fiction, albeit based upon an actual historical event, and so it's a smoother read... a page-turner really.

The more subtle focal point of the book hits upon the core philosophy of anarchism all of which is shrewdly conveyed through riveting dialogue and suspenseful action.

Regarding the book edition, I acquired an old used library copy, published in hardcover (with a dustjacket) by The University of Chicago Press, in 1963. The work was originally published in 1909 by Mitchell Kennerley (New York), and was republished by the author in 1920. I am very pleased with both the readability and the binding of my edition.

Finally, in the introduction by John Dos Passos, we are told that the author, Frank Harris, was a fringe sort of fellow, and perhaps a bit of a scoundrel at times. But Harris has done a fine job with the book and I highly recommend it.

interesting in light of recent events
The novel, while well written, is a bit dry and observational.However, the ideas it presents, notably what discourse an oppressed people has, have parallels with situations in the West Bank and Sept 11.

"The Bomb" Review
I really liked the way this book was written. Full of descriptions, it tells a story of love, a great friendship and a life that immigrants had and in some ways still have to live in a new country. The book is written in such a way that it makes a reader think that the author, not the protagonist, threw the bomb. It is worth of your money and of your time to read it.

Fascinating book in a lousy edition
I bought the Feral House paperback reprint of The Bomb because it was the only one readily available at the time. I'm now tempted to track down another edition, because Feral House did a very poor job. The text is riddled with typographical errors to the extent that it is occasionally hard to be sure exactly what asentence is supposed to mean. (Feral House likes to call themselves "the publisher that refuses to be tamed"; I prefer to think of them as "the publisher that refuses to hire a proofreader".) The new afterword by a modern anarchist "thinker" is witless, doctrinaire nonsense. It adds nothing to the book.John dos Passos' introduction (borrowed from an earlier edition) ismean-spirited and rather contemptible, but its capsule biography of Frank Harris may be useful to those who know little of his life.

The novel itself is very good, though the novel's focus, the semi-fictitious anarchist Louis Lingg, is a bit too perfect to be believed. He's really not so much a believable character as an author mouthpiece in the style of Ayn Rand's John Galt or Robert Heinlein's Jubal Harshaw. The book is a compelling read nevertheless, and I recommend it highly if you can find an edition prepared by someone who understands the value of proofreading.

Historical, partly-fictional, story of Haymarket Riot.
Frank Harris gives a wonderful account of the Haymarket Square Riots with one of the greatest, most idealistic love stories as a subplot.Throughout this book I felt truly inclined to believe just how incredible the hero ofthe novel is.It introduced me to the ideas of socialism and put thoughtsin my mind that perhaps the bombing was justified.Either way, this is afascinating book that should be given the time and chance to be read. ... Read more

Product Description
A study of the Shaw-Harris-Wilde literary relationship.

THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY:Books for College Libraries. ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: New York, M. KennerleyPublication date: 1909Subjects: Haymarket Square Riot, Chicago, Ill., 1886Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
Volume II of the series begins with Harris in Russia, andserves as prima facie evidence for anyone who believesHarris was the model for Harry Flashman. However thisbook, longest by far of the series, delves into Harris' daysin London Society, where his position as renowned editorgave him a front-row seat before many of the greats of theperiod. Still has tons of sex, but a bit less than the firstinstallment. ... Read more

Product Description
A brilliant portrait of Frank Harris, legendary sexual adventurer and author of the notorious memoir My Life and Loves, who scandalized Victorian and Edwardian England with his outrageous erotic exploits. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
When the famed British writer Charles Dickens came to America on a reading tour in 1842, he was instantly repelled by a habit unknown on his side of the water: spitting. "I would be content," he recalled, "even to live in an atmosphere of spit, if they would but spit clean. But when every man ejects from his mouth that odious, most disgusting compound of saliva and tobacco, I vow my stomach revolts, and I cannot endure it."

Dickens found much to admire in the early 19th-century American way of life, but its rougher edges made him glad to return to England. The wild and woolly aspects of America gave other British travelers pause too, as James Simmons demonstrates in this set of anecdotal sketches on British travelers to the United States. Simmons doesn't offer much of a thesis, except to note that different visitors responded differently to the unfamiliar surroundings of America: George Ruxton, for instance, reveled in the trying conditions of the Rocky Mountains, where Indian attacks and psychotic trappers were commonplace, while Oscar Wilde was moved to ecstasy at the sight of both the actress Sarah Bernhardt and the porcelain teacups of San Francisco's Chinatown. Other travelers, for their part, found less to like in the New World, complaining bitterly about drunken stagecoach drivers, perilous fauna, and other colorful inconveniences. But whatever their reaction, Simmons writes in this entertaining exercise in cultural history, all these travelers "returned to England profoundly changed by their exposure to the American people, institutions, and landscapes." --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Entertaining, Offbeat Look at 19th Century US History
In "Star Spangled Eden," James Simmons joins adventure story, mini-biography, and travelogue for a refreshing look at mid-19th century American history. He allows us to see through the eyes of British artists (Fanny Kemble) authors (Charles Dickens, Civil War reporter "Bull Run" Russell) and adventurers (Frank Harris, Richard Burton) trying to understand and succeed in a growing country just understanding itself.

"Eden" touches on the seismic events between 1820-1890: slavery, the Civil War and reconstruction, taming of the American West, manifest destiny, the Chicago fire and the start of Mark Twain's "Gilded Age." But letters, newspaper stories, biographies and other first person period literature allow Simmons to show the humanity behind them even at its most graphic (Part II, covering "The Western Frontier," contains most of the book's goriest images.)

You read of Dickens' "quarrel with America" over copyright infringement and Frances Trollope's disgust with perceived American misogyny, egalitarianism and even table manners. These resulted in two books causing national furor and turning American goodwill against their respective authors. (Several chapters repeat disgust with tobacco spittle and a savage American press.) Most notably, in Kemble's chapter, Simmons shows how America's shame of slavery tears a nation and family asunder.

But each of Simmons' subjects is astounded at America's natural beauty (most notably west of the Mississippi) and earnestness even while complaining of crude manners or(as Oscar Wilde didwittily in the chapter on his American tour)aesthetics.

Simmons allows some sense of closure when saying those gleaning the most from their American experience assimilated themselves best into it. This covered episodes from Wilde drinking American friends and rivals under the table to Burton and mountain man George Puxton adapting clothes, mannerisms and even speech from their new neighbors. This contrasts with Trollope and Dickens who,in Simmons words, "had no appreciation of America as a vigorous, expanding nation." Through his anecdotes, Simmons allows you to see American growing pains his characters often could not.

Simmons' only misstep is forgiveable. In Wilde's chapter he tells of presidential assassin Charles Guiteau, whose trial and execution for shooting James Garfield becomes a media circus, prefacing celebrity trials even as he identifies Wilde as "the first modern celebrity...famous for being famous." You expect Simmons to make a larger point on Guiteau's perverse interpretation of what Wilde considered the art of his own life, but Simmons never quite does. (It would also have helped to read of Wilde's meeting fellow iconoclast Ambrose Bierce.)

Regardless, Simmons succeeds at the aim of his acknowledgements. "With proper research and attention to the small details of place, action, and character," he writes, "formal history could be written to read as easily and effortlessly as the finest historical romance." Indeed, Simmons successfully wraps American hisory around his characters' adventures in "Star-Spangled Eden" (and includes a superb bibliography), making his an offbeat, informative and even reasssuring history lesson.

Entertaining and Intriguing American History
I loved Star-Spangled Eden. This well researched history reads like a historical romance.Simmons covers 50 of the most critical years of American History, 1830-1850, through the eyes of eight British men andwomen who came here, traveled widely, and had marvelous adventures. Eachtraveler plugs into a major theme of the era when the country developedfrom raw frontier to a modern industrial state and provides a uniqueperspective on important events of this period - the Southern slaverysystem, the Civil War, the exploration and settlement of the West,etc.

My favorite chapter is the last one on Oscar Wilde's wittyeleven-month cross-country American tour.To quote the author, "Herewas the leading British snob, an effete poseur of highly refinedsensibilities, lecturing American audiences from Boston to Leadville on theprinciples of aesthetics and becoming a popular celebrity in the process. Wilde found himself growing inordinately fond of Americans. A less unlikelylove match could scarcely be imagined."

Simmons writes greathistory-of-travel books. I first discovered him with Castaway in Paradise:The Incredible Adventures of True-Life Robinson Crusoes. I recommend thesebooks to anyone looking for a great read that's based on fact. ... Read more

Product Description
The life story of Suzannah (Thana) Harris, the only FrankZappa vocalist that successfully mastered the difficult vocals onZappa's album "Sleep Dirt." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Exploitative rubbish
This is a dismal book. Badly written, unedited, and full of mistakes, this is truly a vanity project. Unless you are a member of Thana Harris' immediate family there is no reason whatever to purchase this. Frank Zappa fans looking for informative details on the recordings of Ms. Harris's overdubs on the "Sleep Dirt" tracks will learn nothing new. Fans of Bob Harris and/or Steve Vai may be a little less disappointed, but this is just one more book that only got published because it has a tenuous connection with Zappa. ...

Nice Biography
The subtitle of UNDER THE SAME MOON is MY LIFE WITH FRANK ZAPPA, STEVE VAI, BOB HARRIS AND A COMMUNITY OF OTHER ARTISTIC SOULS. I purchased the book because of the subtitle.

Suzannah Harris has a nice writing style and is quite a romantic.However, I was really disappointed. I was much more interested in capturing the unique picture of the Frank Zappa, etc. UNDER THE SAME MOONis a personal biography with little emphasis on the community of artistic souls.

Thus if you are seeking greater insight to the community, you need not read this book.If you want to read the thoughts and feelings of a person moving from girl to woman, this is the book for you.

HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS BOOK EXISTED?
I've been a huge fan for years of Frank Zappa and Steve Vai, so it was with much happiness that I discovered this book and ordered it... Just for those parts of the book alone, it was well worth the purchase.

Light, believable biography
This book isn't so much a tell-all as a tell-what-she-knows-and-make-it-interesting. Thana Harris relates her experiences working and recording with Frank Zappa, which led directly toher meeting and working with Steve Vai and her future husband Bob Harris.

Thana has a nice style that sounds more like a spoken conversation thana written treatise. She does seem to be hinting at some sort of spiritualbelief that brought her together with these musicians, but she never reallyexplains too well just what that belief might be.

Not an absolute MUST,but if you're a Zappa fan it's nice to see him described by a female whodoesn't claim to have slept with him. You come away from this book feelinglike you've just met a very nice person. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Nice guys can finish first.
The book is written by a two-term, eight years, former Governor ofGeorgia.It is more a personal story than a political story.As such, thereader gets a view of what inspired a very private individual to take on avery public political office.This is a book which can dispel the commonbelief that all politicians are crooked and just in politics forthemselves.It is also a book for those who seem to be demanding atheocracy.As a Christian, Harris made some decisions which advisers toldhim were not "politically astute" but which he believed to beright.Yet, he steered clear of the "hot-button" religiousrights issues, such as abortion.The book reveals a great deal about thefamily upbringing of Harris and the values that shaped his life.The samevalues he would carry into public life.He was not a darling of the mediaand given very little chance for success when he announced his race forGovernor.He had only a 2% name recognition among voters, but broke fromthe crowded field to win the democratic nomination.The book doesn'texpose any scandal, is not shocking in any way, and makes no enemies. It isjust an easy read about an unassuming individual that wielded tremendouspower.Nice guys can finish first. ... Read more

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