Robert Barr (writer)
Robert Barr (writer) | |
---|---|
Born | Glasgow, Scotland | 16 September 1849
Died | Woldingham, Surrey, England | 21 October 1912
Pen name | Luke Sharp |
Occupation | Educator, journalist, editor, publisher, novelist |
Nationality | Scottish |
Robert Barr (16 September 1849 – 21 October 1912) was a Scottish-Canadian short story writer and novelist who also worked as a newspaper and magazine editor.
Early years in Canada[edit]
Barr was born in Glasgow, Scotland to Robert Barr and Jane Watson.[1][2] In 1854, he emigrated with his parents to Upper Canada. His family settled on a farm near the village of Muirkirk. Barr assisted his father with his work as a carpenter and builder and was a teacher in Kent County, then in 1873 entered the Toronto Normal School.[3]
After graduating, he taught in Walkerville and in 1874 became headmaster of the Central School at Windsor in 1874.[1] During the 1870s, he wrote humorous pieces for various publications, including the Toronto Grip, under the pseudonym "Luke Sharp",[1] which he took from an undertaker's sign. After the Detroit Free Press serialized his account of a boating trip on Lake Erie, in 1876 he changed careers and became a reporter there, then a columnist. Two of his brothers followed him to the newspaper.[1]
London years[edit]
In 1881, by which time he was exchange editor of the Free Press, Barr decided to "vamoose the ranch" and relocated to London to continue his fiction writing career while establishing a weekly English edition of the newspaper.[4][5] The magazine was very successful.[1] In 1892 he founded the magazine The Idler, choosing Jerome K. Jerome as his collaborator (wanting, as Jerome said, "a popular name").[6] This was also very successful. Barr stepped down as co-editor in 1894, but in 1902 became the sole proprietor and returned as editor.[1]
In London in the 1890s, Barr began writing crime novels and became more prolific, publishing a book a year. He also wrote stories of the supernatural.[1] Detective stories were much in vogue because of the popularity of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories; Barr published the first Sherlock Holmes parody, "Detective Stories Gone Wrong: The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs" (also known as "The Great Pegram Mystery") in The Idler in 1892,[7] and followed it in 1894 with "The Adventure of the Second Swag".[8] His 1906 novel The triumphs of Eugène Valmont parodies Holmes and other "gentleman detectives" whose pompous sleuth is a possible antecedent of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.[1]
Barr socialized widely with other best-selling authors. In 1903, despite initial reservations about taking on the project, he completed The O'Ruddy, a novel left unfinished by his recently deceased friend Stephen Crane.[1][6][9] Despite his Holmes satires, he remained on very good terms with Doyle, who described him in the 1920s in his memoir Memories and Adventures as "a volcanic Anglo—or rather Scot-American, with a violent manner, a wealth of strong adjectives, and one of the kindest natures underneath it all".[10] Barr himself wrote several humorous articles about being a writer, including in 1899 “Literature in Canada” , where he described it as a country whose “average citizen ... loves whiskey better than books".[1]
Writing style[edit]
Barr's short stories usually feature a witty narrator and an ironic twist. His novels tend to be episodic, the chapters often linked only by the central character. His work featured a wide range of protagonists, but his characters are often stereotyped. His narration often includes moral and other asides.[1]
Personal life and death[edit]
In August 1876, when he was 27, Barr married Ontario-born Eva Bennett, who was 21.[1][11] They had either two[1] or three children.[12]
The 1911 census places Robert Barr, "a writer of fiction", at Hillhead, Woldingham, Surrey, a village southeast of London, living with his wife, Eva, their son William, and two female servants.[13] He died there from heart disease on 21 October 1912.[14][15]
Honors[edit]
In 1900, Barr was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Michigan.[1]
Works[edit]
- In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories (13 short stories, 1892): Gutenberg Library, Librivox
- "The Face And The Mask" (24 short stories, 1894): Gutenberg Library
- In the Midst of Alarms (a story of the 1866 attempted Fenian invasion of Canada, 1893), Gutenberg Library
- From Whose Bourne (novel, 1896) Gutenberg Library, Internet Archive
- One Day's Courtship (1896) Gutenberg Library
- Revenge! (20 short stories, 1896) Gutenberg Library, Librivox
- The Strong Arm Gutenberg Library
- A Woman Intervenes (novel, 1896) Gutenberg Library
- The Mutable Many (1896)
- Tekla: A Romance of Love and War (1898) Gutenberg Library
- Jennie Baxter, Journalist (1899) Gutenberg Library
- The Unchanging East (1900)
- The Victors (1901)
- A Prince of Good Fellows (1902) Gutenberg Library
- Over The Border: A Romance (1903)
- The O'Ruddy, A Romance, with Stephen Crane (1903) Gutenberg Library
- A Chicago Princess (1904)
- The Speculations of John Steele (1905)
- The Tempestuous Petticoat (1905–12)
- A Rock in the Baltic (1906) Gutenberg Library
- The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont (1906) Gutenberg Library
- The Measure of the Rule (1907)
- Young Lord Stranleigh (1908)
- Stranleigh's Millions (1909)
- The Sword Maker (historical novel, 1910) Gutenberg Library, Internet Archive
- The Palace of Logs (1912)
- "The Ambassador's Pigeons" (1899)
- "And the Rigor of the Game" (1892)
- "Converted" (1896)
- "Count Conrad's Courtship" (1896)
- "The Count's Apology" (1896)
- "A Deal on Change" (1896)
- "The Exposure of Lord Stanford" (1896)
- "Gentlemen: The King!"
- "The Hour-Glass" (1899)
- "An invitation" (1892)
- "A Ladies Man"
- "The Long Ladder" (1899)
- "Mrs. Tremain" (1892)
- " Transformation" (1896)
- "The Understudy" (1896)
- " The Vengeance of the Dead" (1896)
- "The Bromley Gibbert's Story" (1896)
- " Out of Thun" (1896)
- "The Shadow of Greenback" (1896)
- "Flight of the Red Dog" (fiction)
- "Lord Stranleigh Abroad" (1913)
- "One Day's Courtship and the Heralds of Fame" (1896)
- Cardillac
Sources[edit]
- [1]
- [2]
- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. p. 41.
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n MacKendrick, Louis K. "Barr, Robert". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
- ^ Ancestry.com. Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950 [database on-line]. Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. FamilySearch, 2013.
- ^ Ancestry Library Edition[verification needed]
- ^ Stephen Knight, introduction to The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. x.
- ^ "Literature in Canada". The Canadian Magazine, XIV, 1 (November 1899), pp. 3-7.
- ^ a b Wertheim, Stanley (1997). A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 19–20.
- ^ "Detective Stories Gone Wrong: The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs", Victorian Short Fiction Project, Brigham Young University.
- ^ Anthologized in Penzler, Otto, ed., The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories, New York: Vintage, 2015, ISBN 978-1-101-87261-1, pp. 405–11 (Google Books).
- ^ The Saturday Evening Post, 176, 27, January 2, 1904, p. 20.
- ^ Knight, pp. x-xi.
- ^ "Robert Barr", Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1928; Reel: 20. Ancestry.com and Genealogical Research Library (Brampton, Ontario, Canada). Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1826-1937 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
- ^ "Robert Barr." The National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew, Surrey, England; Class: RG12; Piece: 1034; Folio: 92; Page: 50. Ancestry.com. 1891 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
- ^ Class: RG14; Piece: 3251; Schedule Number: 249. Ancestry.com. 1911 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911.
- ^ The New York Times. 23 October 1912.
- ^ Who's Who 1914, xxi
External links[edit]
- Works by or about Robert Barr at HathiTrust
- Robert Barr at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Electronic editions[edit]
- Works by Robert Barr at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Robert Barr at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about Robert Barr at Internet Archive
- Works by Robert Barr at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Works by or about Robert Barr at The Literature Network
- Sony Reader e-book version of The Triumph of Eugene Valmont
- 1849 births
- 1912 deaths
- 19th-century Canadian novelists
- 19th-century Canadian short story writers
- 19th-century British male writers
- 19th-century British writers
- 19th-century Scottish novelists
- 20th-century Canadian male writers
- 20th-century Canadian novelists
- 20th-century Canadian short story writers
- 20th-century Scottish novelists
- Canadian male novelists
- Canadian male short story writers
- Canadian science fiction writers
- Detroit Free Press people
- Scottish male novelists
- Scottish science fiction writers
- Scottish short story writers
- Scottish emigrants to Canada
- Writers from Glasgow