AMELIA E. BARR
On March 17, 1918, the author of this book had the pleasure, as editor
of _Books and the Book World_ of _The Sun_, New York, of printing what
is certainly the best account extant of Amelia E. Barr within a
reasonable length. Although the article was unsigned it was the work of
Mr. A. Elwood Corning, who had been a neighbor of Mrs. Barr at Richmond
Hill, Long Island, New York. It was based upon a personal visit and
interview. This chapter is really nothing more than a reprint of Mr.
Corning’s article with a few changes, particularly those necessitated by
Mrs. Barr’s death on March 10, 1919, at her Richmond Hill home. To Mr.
Corning, then, the credit of this chapter.
Amelia E. Barr struck the popular taste more than thirty years ago with
her _Bow of Orange Ribbon_. She was one of the most prolific of
present-day writers of fiction. Her last completed novel, _The Paper
Cap_, published in the fall of 1918, brought the number of her books up
to over seventy, and this does not include hundreds of short stories, a
poem a week for _fourteen years_, written for Bonner’s _Ledger_, or the
numerous newspaper articles, essays and verses of the first fourteen
years of her literary life.
On March 29, 1918, Mrs. Barr entered her eighty-eighth year. In the
preceding twelve months she had published three books, and shortly
before her eighty-seventh birthday (or the birthday which made her
eighty-seven years old!) she completed a fourth in manuscript! This was
_The Paper Cap_, the scenes of which are laid in Yorkshire, England,
where the novelist spent a part of her childhood. Mrs. Barr thought it
one of the best stories she had written. The paper cap of the title is
that of the workingman and the story centers around his fight for the
suffrage. It was really a contest between the hand loom and the power
loom.
It was about 4 in the afternoon when Mr. Corning reached Mrs. Barr’s
study on the visit which preceded the preparation of his article. Mrs.
Barr had been writing since 7 that morning, with only a brief
intermission for luncheon, and was not feeling, she declared, so well as
usual. “This is one of mamma’s blue Mondays,” said her daughter. But
after she had begun to discuss current events, some incidents of her
early life in Texas and above all the war Mrs. Barr became animated. She
was an interesting and enthusiastic talker with positive views, a power
of unusually apt expression and a mind keenly alert. Convinced of a
fact, she uttered it with passionate force.
On this particular afternoon the manuscript of _The Paper Cap_ was lying
on her writing table. “It will be done to-morrow,” she said with the
spirit of one who looks upon the completion of a work which has required
much thought and painstaking labor. She pushed the manuscript toward Mr.
Corning; it was as free of corrections and interpolations as if it had
been freshly copied from a former draft. Mrs. Barr seldom changed what
she first wrote and always used sheets of yellow paper, finding this
tint more restful to her eyes than white.
When weary of building stories she handed the manuscript over to a
stenographer to be typewritten. Mrs. Barr wrote with a lead pencil.
Going to a drawer she brought out a box full of old pencil stubs, some
of which dated back to the days when she was writing _The Bow of Orange
Ribbon_. A few years ago six or seven of these stubs were given to as
many friends, who had them tipped with gold and made into shawl pins.
In personal appearance and dress Mrs. Barr was typically English. She
had a large face and marvelous physique, was rapid of movement and lithe
of step. A flowing gown of some delicate shade was usually worn loosely
over a lace petticoat, and a beribboned cap of lace and rosebuds or
sometimes cowslips rested becomingly on her silvery hair.
But the most striking characteristic of this remarkable woman was the
retention of so much youthful vigor and optimism, which she attributed
to her English ancestry. Born at Ulverton, Lancashire, England, March
29, 1831, Amelia Barr was descended from a long line of Saxon forebears,
of whom the men for generations had been either seamen or preachers of
the Gospel. Her father, the Rev. Dr. William Henry Huddleston, was a
scholar and a preacher of eloquence. The child’s early education was
largely under his supervision. As he was a regular contributor to
English reviews, the little daughter was brought up in a literary
environment.
Before she was six she is said to have known intimately the tales of the
_Arabian Nights_, and nothing pleased her more in those days than to be
the recipient of a new book, a pleasure seldom afforded her. She would
often accompany her father on his preaching itineraries through the
fishing villages and thus became a lover of the sea, from which she
doubtless formed impressions which have disclosed themselves in her
fiction.
At eighteen she was sent to a Free Kirk seminary in Glasgow, where she
remained until her marriage to Robert Barr in July, 1850. For three
years the young couple lived in Scotland. Here Mrs. Barr made the
acquaintance of Henry Ward Beecher, who years later was able to help her
begin her career as a writer.
Failure in business compelled the Barrs to come to America. They first
came to New York, where the future novelist saw for the first time to
her great delight ready-made dresses and oranges, a fruit not easily
procurable in the north of England or Scotland.
The Barrs with their two little daughters soon went West, locating in
Chicago. After a time misfortune drove them South. They went first to
Austin, later to Galveston, Texas. The history of these eventful and
sorrowful years is told in Mrs. Barr’s autobiography, _The Red Leaves of
a Human Heart_.
In Austin success was sandwiched in with failure, disappointments and
heartaches. In those early days on the frontier there was a great
scarcity of many things which went to make up home life. When Mrs. Barr
came to America she had been told that she was going into a desolate and
savage country in which there were none of the comforts of life and
where none could be obtained. So she brought with her a great assortment
of useful articles, such as needles, tape, sewing cotton (linens, silks,
etc.). Finding that they had more than they wanted of such things, the
Barrs traded some of them for tea and other staple articles of food.
Despite vicissitudes Mrs. Barr never neglected her reading or the daily
instruction of her children. The noon hour was reserved for study and at
that time no one was permitted to disturb her. She could be seen daily
sitting with a young baby on her lap by the open door of her log house
partaking of the noonday meal and reading at the same time. In all, Mrs.
Barr had fifteen children. Three daughters are now living, one the wife
of Kirk Munro, the popular writer for boys.
In spite of her large family Mrs. Barr found time to accomplish things
outside household duties. During the Civil War, for example, articles of
amusement were few. One was put to great inconvenience in securing
games. So Mrs. Barr, an enthusiastic whist player, painted a pack of
cards, which were to those who remember them a most real counterpart of
an original set.
At the close of the war the Barrs moved to Galveston, and there, in
1867, Mrs. Barr experienced the overwhelming sorrow of her life. Yellow
fever entered her home. The whole family was stricken, and before Mrs.
Barr herself had fully recovered she suffered the loss of her husband
and three little sons.
After endeavoring to support herself and three daughters in the South
she came with them to New York in the fall of 1869.
One day she was asked if she could write stories and replied that she
had often written them for the amusement of her children but had
destroyed them after they had served their purpose. She promised to try
again and received $30 for the effort.
“What, $30 for that article?” she exclaimed. “Why, I can write three or
four of them a week.”
She eventually found work on the _Christian Union_, of which Beecher was
editor, and this opened a career which brought her both a reputation and
honor. At first she rented a few rooms at 27 Amity Street, Brooklyn, a
house once occupied by Edgar Allan Poe, although at the time she was
unconscious of the fact. When she moved into these quarters she found
that after paying the rent she had only $5 in her purse.
“Well, girls,” she told her daughters, “we will have a good beefsteak
dinner and let to-morrow take care of itself.” Even then she felt, as
she afterward said, that “God and Amelia Barr were a multitude.”
For fourteen years Mrs. Barr toiled, meeting with successes and rebuffs.
It was a hard struggle. After working all day in the Astor Library she
would often at night take her daughters to the theater, leaving
sometimes in her purse only enough money for carfare in the morning.
Returning from one of these outings she discovered that her house had
been broken into. Rushing at once to the family Bible, she found $40
between the pages where she had placed it for safety. Not having in
those days enough money to bank, she would often put bills behind
pictures, and they were never disturbed.
In 1884 _Jan Vedder’s Wife_ was published. The success of this book
almost immediately placed Mrs. Barr in the front rank of popular
American novelists. From that time her record was phenomenal. Over
fifty-three when her first book appeared, Mrs. Barr produced an average
of over two novels a year and at the close of her life she had not one
unsold manuscript. She had written only one article, she said, which she
was never able to dispose of. And so little did she care for her books
after they had been written that she had not a complete set of them in
her library, which numbered several thousand volumes.
She not infrequently took up one of her old novels and after reading it
said that it seemed like a new story. “All my characters,” she once
remarked, “are real to me. They begin to live and have a personality of
their own. I have started to write a villain and afterward fallen in
love with him and made him my hero.”
Mrs. Barr’s books were invariably sold outright. Years ago she made a
thorough study of the early history of Manhattan Island, which
ultimately formed a foundation on which she built eight historical
novels which stand out as among the best of her work. Chronologically
considered they should be read as follows:
_The House on Cherry Street._
_The Strawberry Handkerchief._
_The Bow of Orange Ribbon._
_A Maid of Old New York._
_A Song of a Single Note._
_The Maid of Maiden Lane._
_Trinity Bells._
_The Belle of Bowling Green._
So much Mr. Corning. The author of this book can add nothing to so
extraordinary a story. As fiction, Mrs. Barr’s own life and performance
would be called incredible. Her stories are first-rate stories; all of
them offer clean, imaginative and very real entertainment; many of them
offer a true and valuable picture of vanished or vanishing times,
manners and people. Her achievement was much bigger and more solid and
worth while than many, many efforts at literary “art.”
BOOKS BY AMELIA E. BARR
_Jan Vedder’s Wife._
_A Border Shepherdess._
_Feet of Clay._
_Bernicia._
_Remember the Alamo._
_She Loved a Sailor._
_The Lone House._
_A Sister of Esau._
_Prisoners of Conscience._
_The Tioni Whelp._
_The Black Shilling._
_The Bow of Orange Ribbon._
_A Maid of Old New York._
_A Song of a Single Note._
_The Maid of Maiden Lane._
_Trinity Bells._
_The Belle of Bowling Green._
_The Red Leaves of a Human Heart._
_The Strawberry Handkerchief_, 1908.
_The Hands of Compulsion_, 1909.
_The House on Cherry Street_, 1909.
_All the Days of My Life_, 1913.
_Playing With Fire_, 1914.
_The Winning of Lucia_, 1915.
_Three Score and Ten_, 1915.
_Measures of a Man_, 1915.
_Profit and Loss_, 1916.
_Joan_, 1917.
_Christine_, 1917.
_An Orkney Maid_, 1918.
_The Paper Cap_, 1918.
_Songs in the Common Chord_, 1920.
_(About 40 other books.)_
_Mrs. Barr’s novels are published by D. Appleton & Company, New York.
Some may be had in reprint, others are out of print._