Robert Barr: My Modest Collection

Robert Barr at his desk at The IdlerMcClure's Magazine, November 1894If Canadian Grant Allen really was the "busiest man in England," as he claimed, might his contemporary Robert Barr have placed second? Allen produced fifty-two books in his fifty-one years, whereas Barr managed only forty-six in his sixty-three. On the other hand, Barr also worked with friend Jerome K. Jerome as editor of The Idler, easily one of the very finest magazines, literary or otherwise, in Victorian England. I spent a pleasant afternoon last weekend with its March 1894 issue.The cover image is by English painter Hal Hurst, one of eight – eight! – he made for the second instalment of Vernon's Aunt, a new novel by daughter of Brantford Sara Jeanette Duncan. It's followed by an uncollected Robert Barr short story titled 'Two of a Kind.'Grant Allen makes an unwitting appearance in illustrator Scott Rankin's series 'People I Have Never Met.'Barr returns to make a brief, yet persuasive argument in the magazine's…

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