Elmer Blaney Harris

Elmer Blaney Harris (January 11, 1878 – September 6, 1966) was an American author, dramatist, and playwright.

Harris was born in Chicago, Illinois as the youngest of eight children. He moved with his family to Oakland, California, after his father's broom factory burned to the ground. After high school, he attended the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated in 1901 with a B.S. in writing, and as an actor for the university theater troupe, he had gained a patron, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the mother of William Randolph Hearst. With her financial backing, Harris was able to study in New York City and Europe for the next four years.

When he returned to San Francisco, he became a newspaper reporter for the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, and lectured at clubs and universities on authors and playwrights, such as George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. However, this didn't last long: when the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed the newspaper's office and the newspaper, Harris left for New York City. There he wrote feverishly for newspapers and magazines, contributing articles, reviews, and short stories. At the same time he was translating with Cora Older. He began to travel back and forth from Manhattan to the Bay Area, and in California he helped to found the Carmel-by-the-Sea artists' colony. At Carmel he dramatized his first play, Sham, a short story by Geraldine Bonner.

Harris was married in 1908, and after his honeymoon he built a summer home in Fortune Bridge, Prince Edward Island, helping to establish a second artists' colony there. At Fortune Bridge he worked on his next three plays, The Offenders (1908), Trial Marriage (1909), and Thy Neighbor's Wife (1911). During this period, he divided his time between Fortune Bridge and New York City.

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