Robert Barr’s Life at The Idler: Four Unpublished Letters

Robert Barr occupied an enviable position in 1890s literary London. Together with Jerome K. Jerome, Barr owned and edited the popular monthly magazine the Idler. On his own, Barr wrote short stories and novels which earned him a lucrative income. As a literary and club man, he enjoyed a large acquaintance with the leading authors of the day, including Stephen Crane, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Rudyard Kipling. Yet despite his prominent place in the late-Victorian literary marketplace, little to nothing has been written about Barr’s life or works as compared to those of his contemporaries. The following four letters written to Maud Russell Lorraine Sharpe (née Hammer) between 1892 and 1896 shed light on Barr’s literary activities, including the running of the Idler, the composition of his own works, and the life of a late nineteenth-century man of letters.