Of considerable popular appeal at the turn of the century, the London-based novelist and short-story writer Robert Barr was part of a literary fraternity that included Stephen Crane, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Rudyard Kipling. Now, however, Barr is scarcely remembered other than for occasional contributions to the crime-fiction genre, such as the first Sherlock Holmes parody, "The Great Pegram Mystery" (1892; collected in The Face and the Mask, 1894), and a series featuring his own master sleuth, The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont (1906). As far as Barr's contributions to the development of Canadian literature are concerned, the standard critical response has been to dismiss his writings as the commercial productions of a bygone era, lowly ephemera undeserving of any scholarly attention. However, the truth of the matter is that Barr is a major Canadian humorist, as worthy of remembrance as, say, Stephen Leacock.

Robert Barr was born in Glasgow...