Robert Barr (1849 - 1912) was a Scottish-Canadian short story writer and novelist, born in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1881 Barr decided to "vamoose the ranch", as he stated, and relocated to London, to establish there the weekly English edition of the Detroit Free Press. In 1892 he founded the magazine The Idler, 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-publishing a book a year-and was familiar with many of the best-selling authors of his day, including Bret Harte and Stephen Crane. Most of his literary output was of the crime genre, then quite in vogue.