Authors and Illustrators Database

Born: 09/16/1850  Glasgow, Scotland
Died: 10/21/1912
Parents: Robert (Carpenter) and Jane Barr
Spouse: Eva Bennett
Children: two

Image	Title	Genre	Audience	Publisher	Date
	The Selected Stories of Robert Barr - Edited by John Parr	Fiction	Adult	University of Ottawa Press	1977
	Short Modern Plays - Contributor with S. Lewis Ransom and edited by S. R. Littlewood	Drama	Adult	New York: Macmillan	1939
	The Helping Hand and Other Stories	Fiction	Adult	London: Mills & Boon	1920
	A Woman in a Thousand	Fiction	Adult	Hodder & Stroughton	1913
	The Palace of Logs	Fiction	Adult	London: Mills & Boon	1912
	The Sword Maker	Fiction	Adult	New York, F.A. Stokes Co.	1910
	The Measure of the Rule - Satirical novel of experiences teaching	Fiction	Adult	Constable and Appleton	1908
	The O'Ruddy: A Romance - With Stephen Crane	Drama	Adult	New York : Frederick A. Stokes	1903
	A Prince of Good Fellows - First published as The King Dines	Fiction	Adult	New York, McClure, Phillips & Co.	1902
	The Unchanging East - Middle East -- Description and travel.	Non Fiction, Travel	Adult	London, Chatto & Windus	1900
	Revenge	Fiction	Adult	New York, F.A. Stokes Co.	1896
	In a Steamer Chair and Other Shipboard Stories - As Luke Sharp.	Fiction, Short Stories	Adult	New York, Cassell Publishing Company	1892
	Strange Happenings - As Luke Sharp	Fiction	Adult	Dunkerley	1883
	Other writings: - Wrote several plays in the early 1900s	Drama	Adult

What is the aim or goal of your writing: In all, Barr's career seemed settled, but he was already interested in making his living by the pen. A planned summer boating vacation with school chum Alexander McNeil was to provide his first entry into the world of publication. As Alison Janice McNabb Cox wrote in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, “Barr's humorous fictional account of their boating trip along the shores of Lake Erie began with hypothetical absurdities related in letters written to McNeil long before their actual departure, letters that became the nucleus for what was to be his first published work.” Barr sent out this, his first literary effort, to Canadian publishers and newspapers but with no success. Since Canada seemed unreceptive to his prose, he gave the U.S. papers a try, and the Detroit Free Press ran the serialized piece, entitled “A Dangerous Journey,” from October 10 to December 12 of 1875. Barr began his writing career under the pseudonym Luke Sharp--a name that must have tickled the humorist's appreciation for puns when he spotted it on an undertaker's sign. He would use it throughout the early years of his career, and revived it periodically long after he had begun publishing under his own name. Barr's wit earned him the attention of Free Press publisher William E. Quimby, who soon offered the budding author a staff position reporting for the paper.

May inquiries be sent to you about doing workshops, readings: No

Donated books to the Authors & Illustrators database project: No

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MeLCat Links:
http://elibrary.mel.org/search~S15?/aBarr%2C+Robert%2C+1850-1912/abarr+robert+1850+1912/-3%2C-1%2C0%2CB/exact&FF=abarr+robert+1850+1912&1%2C97%2C

Last Modified On: 8/10/2016 12:00:00 AM