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Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library© 1997 By the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. All rights reserved.
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Collection is open to research.
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Frank Harris Collection, Accession 7453-a, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library
Purchase, 1964 Apr 29
Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities
[Sends second volume of My Life and Loves , which he regards as his best work; will send the first volume when money is received.]
[Asking agent in America to send volume one of [ My Life and Loves ]; says customs would not allow shipping from France because of nude pictures; regards volumes two and three of [ My Life and Loves ] as his best work; is ill with bronchitis.]
[Agrees with comments on My Life and Loves ; comments on religion, war, the Sacco and Vanzetti case, and human stupidity; begs forgiveness for 'scrawl,' the result of near blindness.]
[Requests Edna Millay 's "Renasence"; wishes to disprove claim that it is "the best modern poem"; also requests the best work of Edwin A. Robinson , with whom he is not familiar.]
[Does not rate Millay and Robinson as highly as Taylor does; looks forward to receiving the books in order to favorably revise his opinion of them.]
[Would welcome the book showing trend of American poetry but doubts that he and Taylor would agree; disparages [Thomas] Hardy 's work, especially the silliness of Tess of the d'Ubervilles ; complains that Hardy was wealthy and highly honored while he is hard working but poor; comments on sonnet by Lizette Woodworth Reese . ]
[Looks forward to book he is sending; does not think Theodore Dreiser capable of writing about Russia , recommends book by A[lexander] Berkman and [Emma] Goldman . ]
[Wishes to renew relationship after two years of illness; gives prices for four volumes of My Life and Loves ; mentions his secretary left, taking the typescript copy of the fourth volume with her; hopes to publish Pantopia in the fall.]
[Will send Pantopia when printed; requests [E.W.] Howe 's comments and his book; has written a volume of "Essays" and the sixth volume of [Contemporary] Portraits ; asks if he could find a publisher willing to pay advance on royalties.]
[Comments on The Lies and Libels of Frank Harris ; disputes claim that he is "half-Jew, half-Irish"; inquires about Stanley Westal and Frank Dobie who have criticized his "cowboy book"; expects Pantopia to be published in New York in the fall; says My Life and Loves is providing a good income; complains that censors prevent him from sending it to him.]
[Pleased that he liked Confessional ; asks that he defend him from attacks by Frank Dobie and Stanley Vestal ; feels that his own mistakes about dates and places are a result of the passage of sixty years; comments on progress of Pantopia which is being undermined by the censors; had hoped it would equal Montes [the Matador] and The Miracle of Stigmata . ]
[Pleased that he agrees with idea of adding Lord Alfred Douglas ' confession to Oscar Wilde: [His Life and Times] ; denies Wilde translated Petronius Arbiter ; comments on Life of Shaw . ]