Classic Biography Frank Harris - Softcover

Pullar, Philippa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141390670 ISBN 13: 9780141390673

Publisher: Penguin UK, 2001

Synopsis

Notorious writer and legendary sexual adventurer, Frank Harris scandalized Victorian and Edwardian England with his outrageous carnal exploits. He lived a sensational life surrounded by myth and exaggeration - much of which was perpetrated by himself. As a journalist Frank Harris was the chronicler of the glittering "fin de siecle" coterie which included Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, George Bernard Shaw and Aleister Crowley. But it was for his frenzied sexual escapades that he became famed - as recorded explicitly in his racy and unreliable autobiography "My Life and Loves", which was banned for its pornographic contents. Posterity has classed him as a lustful satyr and liar ever since. Yet Philippa Pullar shows that beneath the image of the bawdy Lothario lay a far more complex personality. Frank Harris was also a social reformer, traveller, literary critic and loyal friend, a man with a private, melancholy side, whose constant affairs were partly to seek the reassurance that he had never had from his cold, puritanical father. Compulsive and often outrageous, this brilliantly entertaining and deeply researched work is the fullest portrait possible of an extraordinary man.

About this title

From the Publisher

Frank Harris lived a sensational life surrounded by myth and exaggeration—much of which was perpetrated by himself. As a journalist, Harris was the chronicler of the glittering fin de siècle coterie that included Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, George Bernard Shaw and Aleister Crowley. But it was for his frenzied sexual escapades that he became infamous—as recorded explicitly in his racy and unreliable autobiography My Life and Loves, which was banned for its pornographic content. Posterity has classed him as a lustful satyr and liar ever since. Yet Philippa Pullar shows that beneath the image of the bawdy Lothario lay a far more complex personality. Harris was a social reformer, traveler, literary critic, and loyal friend, a man with a private, melancholy side, whose constant affairs offered a reassurance never provided by his cold, puritanical father. This compelling biography, first published in Britain 1975, is the definitive life of an extraordinary man.

About the Author

Philippa Pullar was born in London in 1935. She received a Cordon Bleu Certificate of Cookery and was a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society. She also wrote the witty and entertaining CONSUMING PASSIONS: A HISTORY OF ENGLISH FOOD AND APPETITE to be published in Penguin Classic History in June 2001.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin UK
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0141390670
• ISBN 13: 9780141390673
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448