Barr, Amelia E(dith Huddleston)

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BARR, Amelia E(dith Huddleston)

Born 29 March 1831, Ulverton, Lancashire, England; died 10 March 1919, New York, New York

Wrote under: Amelia E. Barr

Daughter of William Henry and Mary Singleton Huddleston; married Robert Barr, 1850; children: six (three died young)

Amelia E. Barr was the second daughter of a Methodist clergyman. The family moved several times during her childhood, and she attended various small private schools. When she was just sixteen she felt the need to help the family financially, and after two years of teaching she entered a normal school in Glasgow. Here she fell in love with a prosperous young merchant and married him.

In 1853 her husband was forced to declare bankruptcy, and a little later, in an effort to establish himself again, brought his wife and growing family to the United States. After living in several cities, the Barrs settled in Galveston, Texas, which appeared to her to be the promised land, as she extolled it in several of her works. In 1867 her husband and three sons died of yellow fever, and in 1868, with the three surviving children, all daughters, Barr moved to New York City. For 19 months she was a governess in New Jersey, where she began her writing career. For the rest of her life she wrote steadily and became quite successful.

Her industry was remarkable. It is said that at the end of her life she herself had lost count of how many books she had produced. The National Union Catalog lists more than 75 works. In addition, she contributed a large number of short stories and essays to such periodicals as the Christian Union, the Illustrated Christian Weekly, Harper's Weekly, Harper's Bazaar, Frank Leslie's Magazine, and the Advance. Her verses alone netted her a $1,000 a year for 15 years and were reprinted widely in periodicals. Most amazing, perhaps, is her endurance. Up to the time of her death at eighty-eight she was writing fiction not perceptibly inferior to what she had done in her prime.

Barr was a woman of firm character and decided opinions. An extremely religious person, from her earliest years she believed she had psychic powers and was convinced her dreams foretold the future. Later she became an ardent believer in reincarnation. Additionally, she had strong convictions about the position of women. Her views on this occur again and again in her autobiography, All the Days of My Life (1913). "All my life long," she says, "I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women." In one place she remarks caustically that to a man his children are much more valuable than his wife; the former are of his flesh, but the latter is not, and can easily be replaced. It was a matter of course that she would applaud the efforts of the suffragettes, for whom she had nothing but praise.

She was genuinely interested in history, and many of her novels have carefully researched historical backgrounds. One reviewer praised her use of historical data: "Mrs. Barr is very skillful in correlating the interests of the past and present. Not only do the incidents presage the situation of today, but the characters blend in themselves the quaintness of the long ago and the universality of all peoples." Another critic said that her fiction may be read for its historical data alone.

In spite of her use of historical facts, however, Barr's work was not destined to last—it is too floridly romantic, too sentimental. One critic called it "extremely superficial," and Barr's own theory of fiction seems to bear him out: "I have always found myself unable to make evil triumphant. Truly, in real life it is apparently so, but if fiction does not show us a better life than reality, what is the good of it?"

Barr's personality, high-strung and fanatical though it was, is of more interest than her writings. Her existence was one of exhausting labor, many trials, and many sorrows (of her six children, only three lived to grow up, and one of these was mentally unbalanced). Yet she retained an eager enthusiasm for living up to the very end.

Other Works:

Romances and Realities: Tales of Truth and Fancy (1876). The Young People of Shakespeare's Dramas (1882). Cluny MacPherson; A Tale of Brotherly Love (1883). Scottish Sketches (1883). Jan Vedder's Wife (1885). The Hallam Succession (1885). A Daughter of Fife (1886). The Bow of Orange Ribbon (1886). The Squire of Sandal-Side (1886). The Household of McNeil (1886). A Border Shepherdess (1887). Paul and Christina (1887). Christopher, and Other Stories (1887). In Spite of Himself (1888). Master of His Fate (1888). The Novels of Besant and Rice (1888). Remember the Alamo (1888). Between Two Loves (1889). Feet of Clay (1889). The Last of the McAllisters (1889). Friend Olivia (1889). The Beads of Tasmer (1890). The Household of McNeil (1890). She Loved a Sailor (1890). Woven of Love and Glory (1890). Sister to Esau (1891). Love for an Hour is Love Forever (1891). A Rose of a Hundred Leaves (1891). The Preacher's Daughter (1892). Michael and Theodora (1892). Mrs. Barr's Short Stories (1892). Girls of a Feather (1893). The Lone House (1893). A Singer from the Sea (1893). Bernicia (1895). The Flower of Gala Water (1893). A Knight of the Nets (1896). Winter Evening Tales (1896). The King's Highway (1897). Prisoners of Consciences (1897). Stories of Life and Love (1897). Maids, Wives, and Bachelors (1898). I, Thou and the Other One (1899). Trinity Bells (1899). Was It Right to Forgive? (1899). The Maid of Maiden Lane (1900). Souls of Passage (1901). The Lion's Whelp (1901). A Song of a Single Note (1902). The Black Shilling (1903). Thyra Varrick (1903). The Belle of Bowling Green (1904). Cecilia's Lovers (1905). The Man Between (1906). The Heart of Jessy Laurie (1907). The Strawberry Handkerchief (1908). The Hands of Compulsion (1909). The House on Cherry Street (1909). A Reconstructed Marriage (1910). A Maid of Old New York (1911). Sheila Vedder (1911). Three Score and Ten: A Book for the Aged (1913). Playing with Fire (1914). The Measure of a Man (1915). The Winning of Lucia (1915). Profit & Loss (1916). Christine, A Fife Fisher Girl (1917). Joan (1917). An Orkney Maid (1918). The Paper Cap: A Story of Love and Labor (1918). Songs in the Common Chord (1919).