Popular novel, first published in 1913. According to Wikipedia: "Robert Barr (September 16, 1849 October 21, 1912) was a British-Canadian short story writer and novelist, born at Glasgow, Scotland… In 1892 he founded The Idler magazine, choosing Jerome K. Jerome as his collaborator (wanting, as Jerome said, "a popular name"). He retired from its co editorship in 1895. In London of the 1890s Barr became a more prolific author - turning out a book a year - and on familiar terms with many of the best-selling writers of his day, including Bret Harte and Stephen Crane. Most of his literary output was of the crime genre, then quite in vogue. When Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were making their literary splash Barr published in the Idler the first Holmes parody, "The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs" (1892), a spoof that was continued a decade later in another Barr story, "The Adventure of the Second Swag" (1904). Despite the jibe at the growing Holmes phenomenon Barr and Doyle remained on very good terms. Doyle describes him in his memoirs 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."
Popular novel, first published in 1913. According to Wikipedia: "Robert Barr (September 16, 1849 October 21, 1912) was a British-Canadian short story writer and novelist, born at Glasgow, Scotland… In 1892 he founded The Idler magazine, choosing Jerome K. Jerome as his collaborator (wanting, as Jerome said, "a popular name"). He retired from its co editorship in 1895. In London of the 1890s Barr became a more prolific author - turning out a book a year - and on familiar terms with many of the best-selling writers of his day, including Bret Harte and Stephen Crane. Most of his literary output was of the crime genre, then quite in vogue. When Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were making their literary splash Barr published in the Idler the first Holmes parody, "The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs" (1892), a spoof that was continued a decade later in another Barr story, "The Adventure of the Second Swag" (1904). Despite the jibe at the growing Holmes phenomenon Barr and Doyle remained on very good terms. Doyle describes him in his memoirs 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."