Frank Harris was born James Thomas Harris in Galway, Ireland, February 14, 1856. He emigrated alone to the United States in 1869 and after years of study and work both in America and on the European continent, he returned to London in 1882. Harris become the editor of the London Evening News in 1883. In 1886, he left the Evening News for a post editing the Fortnightly Review, which he would continue to do until 1894. From 1894 to 1898, he edited the Saturday Review. In his posts at these publications, he became acquainted with many of the notable figures of fin-de-siècle London, including Oscar Wilde.

Harris struggled with financial stability often after this period, and moved a great deal, living in the south of France and in London in the years before World War I. In 1915, he returned to New York, where he wrote a number of anti-British articles as well as his volumes of Contemporary Portraits. He was the editor of Pearson's Magazine from 1915-1922 and got into many clashes with American censors and others who found him and his work offensive. During this period, he also began dictating his sprawling and sexually explicit memoirs, My Life and Loves, which was published in various forms (expurgated and not) after 1922.

In 1923, he settled permanently in Nice with his longtime partner, Nellie O'Hara, who he married in 1927. He died in Nice in 1931.