Letters from Frank Harris to Leslie Woollacott, and page proofs, 1924-1926

MLMSS 8214

fonds

1924-1926

423645

0.01 metres of textual material (1 folder)

Frank Harris was an Irish-American author, editor, journalist and publisher. He is well known for his autobiographical book My Life and Loves, which was banned around the world for its sexual explicitness. The book was banned in Australia in 1926.

'A punch in the face of the puritanism and conservatism he raged against, My Life and Loves is the highly charged, erotic autobiography of Frank Harris (1856-1931), an Irish writer and editor who founded Pearson's Magazine in the United States (1914-1918). When first published, the book elicited hostile criticism because of its blunt and frank detail of Harris's sexual exploits, beginning in his childhood. A biographer of Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare, Harris fought the U.S. government and postal service over the content of his publications - battles included in My Life and Loves along with Harris's blunt, colorful depictions of his sexual exploits with willing Victorian Age debutantes. My Life and Loves remains a landmark in erotic literature, as relevant and provocative today as it was when first privately printed in Paris.'

Leslie L. Woolacott was appointed editor of The Triad in October 1924. He attempted to produce a more modern magazine with a greater concentration of short fiction. Woolacott became Frank Harris' agent in Australia.

Reference:
Author record, Frank Harris, AustLit. www.austlit.edu.au (accessed 23 January, 2012)
'Behind the Book: Vance Palmer's short stories and Australian magazine culture in the 1920s', Roger Osborne, in Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (JASAL), vol. 6, 2007

Six letters from Frank Harris to Leslie Woollacott, on subjects such as the topics about which he could write for the Triad, his legal difficulties in regard to the first volume of his memoirs, the appointment of Woolacott as his Australian agent, etc. Also includes 12 pages of the marked up page proofs of chapter one of the second volume of Harris' book 'My Life and Loves'.

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Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales