• Introduction
• Biographical Note
• Collection Description
• Series Descriptions
• Box/Folder Listing

Introduction

Range of Collection Dates: 1908-1976
Range of Collection Bulk Dates: 1920-1930

Size: 4.8 linear feet (8 archival boxes)

Provenance: Princeton University Library purchased the collection in February 2000.

Restrictions: None.

Photocopying, literary rights, and citation: Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Associate University Librarian for Rare Books and Special Collections. The Library has no information on the status of literary rights in the collection and researchers are responsible for determining any question of copyright. Citations should be as follows: Esar Levine Collection of Frank Harris, Box #, Used by permission of the Princeton University Library.

Biographical Note

According to a footnote in the definitive 1963 edition of My Life and Loves edited by John F. Gallagher, Esar Levine was a "writer and anthologist resident in New York" (p. 842). Levine was born in 1899 and worked at the Frank Harris Publishing Company⁽²⁾ and, later, at the Panurge Press in New York, where two of Frank Harris's books were published in 1930 -- Confessional (a book of essays) and Pantopia (a novel) -- the manuscripts of which are included in the collection.

The Levine collection also contains over 100 autograph and typed letters from Frank Harris to Esar Levine which chart their personal and business/editorial relationship between 1920 and 1930. At the time of Levine's earliest letter, Harris was the editor of Pearson's magazine in New York. The final letter in the correspondence series is addressed to Levine's wife, Patsy, and reports on the death of Harris's third wife, Nellie, in 1955, and her subsequent burial in the English Cemetery in Nice, France, alongside her husband (who had died in 1931). Levine's year of death is uncertain; however, the final news clipping in his scrapbook on Harris is dated 1976.

1. Esar Levine's admiration of Frank Harris as a writer can be summed up in the following statement by him:

"Whatever one may think of the extreme boldness of James Joyce's huge experiment, Ulysses, or Frank Harris's daring autobiography, My Life, or D.H. Lawrence's extraordinary novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover, no one who knows these men and their earlier work can question their desperate sincerity." (From Esar Levine's Foreword to the first American edition and English translation of Edouard Charles de Beaumont's 1882 work, The Sword and Womankind (Panurge Press, 1929)).

2. The Frank Harris Publishing Company was founded in New York in mid-to-late 1920s in order to promote and distribute the works of Frank Harris in America. The names of the young men who worked there are cited together by Frank Harris in his autobiography as follows:

"Fortunately for me, I have found several such disciples: Esar Levine, Ben Rebkhuhn, Raymond Thomson and [Einar] Lyngklip. These young Americans came to my lectures in New York and offered me their services. For years they have helped me in all ways of affection, suffered even fines and imprisonment for me-and no man hath greater love than this! Esar Levine has helped me a great deal with this volume, for he knows my writing better than I do. I think the world will soon recognize-for they are all still in the twenties-that the friendship of these men is to me a title of honor" (page 842 of the 1963 edition of My Life and Loves, edited by John F. Gallagher).

By contrast, in a letter from Nice dated August 22^nd 1927, Harris disparagingly addressed these same men "To the Trinity, Esar Levine, Ben Rebhuhn & [Raymond] Thomson" and accused them of embezzling money from him: "Remember that all this time the Trinity was dividing up my earnings knowing that I was lame and half-blind and without the money necessary to go to Paris to consult a good oculist -- three young men able to work willing to live off -- some people would call it by a worse name -- the earnings of a half blind old man over seventy, whom they profess to admire and love!"

Another passage in the same letter reads: "Ross [Harris's attorney] has just written to me to say that the Office [Harris Publishing Co.] is abandoned and he can't find the Holy Trinity - Alas! Alas: The 'devoted, tearful, loving' Trinity will soon have to find work in order to live - they've starved the goose that laid the golden eggs!!" The personal and business relationship between Harris and Levine, however, appears to have been patched up by 1929, according to the letters between them that are in the collection.

3. The Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) lists 1855 as the birth year of Frank Harris, which is why the majority of the Harris catalog records in the Princeton University Library system cite 1855 as his birth year. The Concise Dictionary of National Biography and The Oxford Companion to English Literature list 1856 as Harris' birth year, which is the one being used in this collection's finding aid and online manuscript records (MASC).
 

Collection Description

Scope Note

Consists of the writings, correspondence, and printed matter of and about Frank Harris as collected by Esar Levine (1899-?), Harris's American disciple, friend and agent. Harris's personal and editorial/business correspondence with Levine dates from 1920 to 1930 in the collection. There are also letters to Harris and Levine from their mutual business associates, as well as from such notable persons as Otto Kahn, H.L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair, and G.S. Viereck. The collection contains numerous autograph and typed manuscripts of, and/or corrected proofs for, Harris's My Life and Loves (Volumes I to IV), Confessional, and Pantopia, as well as essays, short stories and unpublished material by him. Printed matter consists of photographs, scrapbook pages, contemporary news clippings, magazines, publicity pamphlets, and other ephemera.

Arrangement

The collection has been arranged into the following series: I. Writings (manuscripts by Harris arranged alphabetically, for the most part, by title; also includes miscellaneous writings by Harris that may or may not have been published; II. Correspondence (arranged by correspondent by date)-A. Frank Harris/Esar Levine (1920-1930), B. Others to, from or about Harris and/or Levine, C. Nellie Harris/Esar Levine (1925-1955); III. Printed Matter (includes copies of published works by Harris; Levine's scrapbook pages (1908-1927) and news clippings (1924-1976); photographs, primarily for publicity, of Harris; magazines edited by Harris or containing articles by or about him; and other miscellaneous material. The collection basically reflects the order in which the unknown person(s) presumably organized the material prior to the Sotheby's sale.

Added Entries

The following added entries have been assigned to this collection to highlight significant sources (other than the main entry), subjects, and forms of the collection's materials. Where possible Library of Congress Subject Headings have been used, and the forms of names reflect international cataloging standards. As a result, all of these entries may be searched in the Department's database (MASC), in the Library's online catalog, and the public card catalog to find other related material.

    People: Harris, Frank, 1855-1931

    Subject Headings (in uppercase) / Form Headings (in upper and lower case):

    AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK (N.Y.)--20TH CENTURY
    Authors, American--20th century--Correspondence
    Authors, American--20th century--Photographs
    Authors, American--20th century--Autobiographies
    Authors, American--20th century--Essays
    Authors, American--20th century--Novels
    Authors, American--20th century--Short Stories
    CENSORSHIP--UNITED STATES--20TH CENTURY
    CENSORSHIP--FRANCE--20TH CENTURY
    Confessional / Frank Harris
    Editors--New York (N.Y.)--20th century--Correspondence
    HARRIS, FRANK, 1855-1931
    Latest contemporary portraits / Frank Harris
    My life / Frank Harris
    My life and loves / Frank Harris
    Pantopia / Frank Harris
    PUBLISHERS AND PUBLISHING--NEW YORK (N.Y.)--20TH CENTURY
    Scrapbooks, American--20th century

Related Publications

The Frank Harris manuscripts found in draft and/or proof form in the collection came to print in the following publications: Latest Contemporary Portraits (Macauley, New York, 1927), My Life and Loves (Frank Harris Publishing Company, New York, 1925), Confessional (Panurge Press, New York, 1930), and Pantopia (Panurge Press, New York, 1930).

Books about Harris:

• Harris, Frank. My Life and Loves (five volumes). Edited and with an introduction by John F. Gallagher. W.H. Allen, London, 1964.
• Pullar, Phillippa. Frank Harris. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1975
• Pearsall, Robert B. Frank Harris. Twayne Publishers, New York, 1970.
• Root, E. Merrill. Frank Harris. Odyssey Press, New York, 1947.
• The Playwright and the Pirate, Bernard Shaw and Frank Harris: A Correspondence. Edited and with an introduction by Stanley Weintraub. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982.

Series Descriptions

Box/Folder Listing