Frank Harris

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