Barr, Robert
Entry updated 18 November 2024. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1849-1912) Scottish-born editor and author, in Canada 1854-1876, then in the US (working as a journalist) till 1881, afterwards mostly in England; some of his lighter fiction appeared as by Luke Sharp. He co-founded The Idler with William Dunkerley (better known as John Oxenham), co-editing it with Jerome K Jerome from February 1892 to July 1895, editing it solo August 1895 to November 1898; for further details see the magazine entry. In his early Disaster tale, "The Doom of London" (November 1892 Idler), London's population is exterminated by a poisonous fog (see Poison; Pollution); the story – which in all respects closely echoes William DeLisle Hay's The Doom of the Great City: Being the Narrative of a Survivor, Written A.D. 1942 (1880 chap) – is recounted half a century later by a narrator who survived due to the Invention (by someone else) of a portable oxygen-generating machine. The tale was reprinted in The Face & the Mask (coll 1894), which contains several other sf and fantasy stories, as does In a Steamer Chair and Other Shipboard Stories (coll 1892). Though he was best known for his detective novels, much of Barr's short fiction was fantasy or horror; relatively little was sf. He was the elder brother of James Barr. [JC/MA]
see also: Canada.
Robert Barr
born Glasgow, Scotland: 16 September 1849
died Woldingham, Surrey: 22 October 1912
works
- In a Steamer Chair and Other Shipboard Stories (London: Chatto and Windus, 1892) [coll: hb/]
- From Whose Bourne (London: Chatto and Windus, 1893) [coll: hb/]
- From Whose Bourne (New York: Frederick A Stokes Company, 1896) [cut version of above: containing title story only: illus/hb/Frank M Gregory]
- The Face & the Mask (London: Hutchinson, 1894) [coll: hb/]
- Revenge! (London: Chatto and Windus, 1896) [coll: hb/]
- Tekla: A Romance of Love and War (Toronto, Ontario: George Morang, 1898) [hb/]
- The Countess Tekla (London: Methuen, 1899) [vt of above: hb/]
- Selected Stories (Ottawa, Ontario: University of Ottawa Press, 1977) [coll: hb/]
- The Adventure of Sherlaw Kombs (Freeville, New York: The Aspen Press, 1979) [chap: originally 1892 Idler as by Luke Sharp: pb/]
- The Adventure of the Second Swag (London: Ferret Fantasy, 1990) as by Luke Sharp [story: chap: a Sherlock Holmes Parody: originally published in December 1904 The Idler: pb/nonpictorial]
links
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