My Life

Paris: Privately Printed, 1925-1927. Leather. Very Good. 9.5" by 6". None. A Limited Edition of these salacious autobiographies, banned for their sexual explicitness. In unique half reverse calf bindings. Volumes II and III of American writer and editor Frank Harris' incendiary biography, first published privately in Paris in 1925 and 1927. These two volumes are pirated editions released as Limited Edition released in the same years, with 1000 copies printed of volume II, and 425 of volume III. These copies are unnumbered. As the work was widely banned, a number of pirated editions were produced. True first editions are signed by the author, and state 'I Sign this copy with my own hand'.The book gives a graphic account of Harris's sexual adventures, relating gossip about the sexual activities of celebrities of his day. Consequently, the work was banned in both the United States and Britain for forty years, first becoming available in America in 1963.Contemporary and historic figures discussed frequently in the book include Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Randolph Churchill, Cecil Rhodes, Lord Salisbury, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Oscar Wilde, and many others.Volume I was privately printed under the title 'My Life and My Loves' in 1922.This work was acquired from the sale of American novelist Paul Gallico's library. Gallico was a prolific writer, but is perhaps now best remembered for his 1969 novel 'The Poseidon Adventure', adapted into the successful 1972 motion picture. In quarter reverse calf bindings, with paper covered boards. Rubbing to back strip heads and tails, with bumping to extremities. Front and rear hinges starting to volume II, with boards holding firm. Internally, firmly bound. Pages clean and bright. Very Good