My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 is the first part of Frank Harris's autobiographical memoir, published privately in 1922. It recounts his personal life, loves, and public career, opening with a foreword about his wartime journalism and political persecution. It is worth listening to for a candid, firsthand portrait of a writer’s world and beliefs.
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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
MY LIFE AND LOVES BY FRANK HARRIS MY LIFE AND LOVES BY FRANK HARRIS PRAXITELES’ APHRODITE PRIVATELY PRINTED 1922 ADDRESS THE AUTHOR, I. RUE DU HELDER: PARIS
FOREWORD
to
THE STORY OF “MY LIFE AND LOVES.”
“Go, soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless errand:
Fear not to touch the best,
The Truth shall be thy warrant.”
Sir Walter Raleigh.
Here in the blazing heat of an American August, amid the hurry and scurry of New York, I sit down to write my final declaration of Faith, as a preface or foreword to the Story of my Life. Ultimately it will be read in the spirit in which it has been written and I ask no better fortune. My journalism during the war and after the Armistice brought me prosecutions from the Federal Government. The authorities at Washington accused me of sedition and though the third
Postmaster General, Ex-Governor Dockery, of Missouri who was chosen by the Department as the Judge, proclaimed my innocence and assured me I should not be prosecuted again, my magazine
(Pearson’s) was time and again held up in the post, and its circulation reduced thereby to one-third. I was brought to ruin by the illegal persecution of President Wilson and his Arch-Assistant Burleson, and was laughed at when I asked for compensation. The American
Government, it appears, is too poor to pay for its dishonorable blunders.
I record the shameful fact for the benefit of those Rebels and Lovers of the Ideal who will surely find themselves in a similar plight in future emergencies. For myself I do not complain. On the whole I
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