NOTES
- Detroit Free Press (London), Sept. 29, 1883, p. 4.
- Silas Farmer, History of Detroit (Detroit: Silas Farmer & Co., 1889), p. 687. Clarence Gohdes, American Literature in 19th Century England (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1944), p. 61n lists three prior American publications in England: Anglo-American Times, 1866–96, a financial weekly; American Settler, 1872, a guide for emigrants; and American Traveller, 1874, a guide for American travellers.
- Detroit Free Press (London), Dec. 5, 1885, p. 8, claimed that sales of “Free Press Flashes,” an illustrated special Christmas edition, already had totalled 150,000 copies. On June 21, 1890, p. 8, the paper said “We want the circulation of the Detroit Free to reach 200,000 before Dec. 31.”
- Harold Herd, The March of Journalism (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1973), p. 233, gives the circulation of the London Daily Star, at about this time, as 146,000, and, p. 235, the circulation of the popular Tit-Bits as 700,000.
- Detroit Free Press, Feb. 7, 1891, p. 4.
- N.W. Ayer's Guide lists the circulation of the Atlantic edition of Time in 1974 at 465,000, but says this was spread among 35 regional editions. The Canadian edition had a listed circulation of 557,713. There was, of course, some circulation of other American periodicals in England, but this was small. For example, on May 26, 1883, p. 8, the London Free Press noted that two American monthlies, Harper's and the Century were selling from 12,000 to 20,000 of each issue in London, despite the inclusion of articles “that have no interest except to Americans.”
- Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycroft, Twentieth Century Authors (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1942), p. 77. Barr seems to be regarded in America as a Briton, and in Britain, as an American, and his Canadian upbringing is disregarded by both. Haycroft, incidentally, credits Barr with being the creator of the “faintly comic Gallic detective,” a type which found full fruition in Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.
- Herd, op. cit., p. 223; Willard G. Bleyer, The History of American Journalism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1927), p. 155.
- Herd, op. cit., pp. 224–5.
- Robert N. Pierce, “Lord Northcliffe: Trans-Atlantic Influences,” Journalism Monographs, No. 40 (August, 1975), p. 4.
- R.D. Altick, The English Common Reader (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 363. The London Free Press fitted this pattern perfectly.
- Gohdes, op. cit., pp. 149–50.
- Nils Erik Enkvist, Caricatures of Americans on the English Stage (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennekat Press, 1968), p. 154.
- Ibid.
- Farmer, op. cit., p. 1096.
- “Noted Novelist, Once Detroiter, Dies in England,” Detroit Free Press, Oct. 23, 1912, p. 2. The obituary notice was written by Barr's brother, John, then the telegraph editor of the paper.
- Detroit Free Press (London), July 16, 1881, p. 4. Weekly editions, which reprinted some of the humorous sketches appearing throughout the week, were popular. An outstanding example was the Toledo Weekly Blade, published by David Ross Locke, and containing the letters of “Petroleum V. Nasby” (See John M. Harrison, The Man Who Made Nasby, David Ross Locke (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1969), pp. 166–180.
- “Noted Novelist,” Detroit Free Press, Oct. 23, 1912, p. 2.
- Detroit Free Press (London), Aug. 6, 1881, p. 8. Quinby and Barr remained close throughout their lives. There is, however, no published account of their agreement. After a time, the London operation acquired its own press, a Bullock press made in New York, and leased or purchased its own building at 310, The Strand, and 325, The Strand. For unexplained reasons, in 1897, the paper temporarily was published at 24 Bouverie Street.
- Detroit Free Press (London), July 16, 1881.
- Ibid., p. 4 (Masthead). in both the upper right-hand and upper left-hand corners.
- Detroit Free Press (London), July 16, 1881, p. 4.
- Later, the London edition also ran letters of appreciation from European subscribers. One such column, headed “What People Say of It,” on Feb. 4, 1882, contained 22 commentaries, one remarking that the “Free Press is nearly good enough to be published in Scotland, and that is a Scotsman's highest praise.”
- Detroit Free Press (London), July 15, 1882, p. 4. Although the article contains a reference to “kindly notices” made by other journals, the London edition did not print them.
- Ibid., Nov. 11, 1882, p. 4. This may have been after the arrival of the Bullock press from New York.
- Ibid., July 14, 1894, p. 4. In essence, the paper was folded, and total space remained the same.
- Ibid., Feb. 13, 1896, p. 10.
- Ibid., Feb. 22, 1896, p. 10.
- Ibid., June 18, 1898, p. 7.
- Joseph Greusel Papers, Burton Historical Collections, Detroit Public Library. A letter from William E. Quinby, Sept. 8, 1888, remonstrates with Greusel about the “selections” of exchange material, both for the London and American editions. The poor choice, Quinby says, “compels us to set matter exclusively for London. This is not economy.”
- Detroit Free Press (London), Sept. 27, 1890, quotes an unnamed source as saying the short-lived London edition—it began in March, 1889—cost Bennett 100,000 pounds sterling.
- The names of the editorial staff members never appeared, either in the masthead, or in the promotional literature. Dunkerley and James Barr, at separate times, were listed as the printers.
- See Kenneth O'Reilley, “M. Quad's Philosophy of the Common Man: The Life and Humour of Charles B. Lewis,” M.A. Thesis, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Mich., 1975. Lewis is mentioned—although not extensively—in most standard works on American humor, notably Walter Blair's Native American Humor and Will Clemens' Famous Funny Fellows. A May 18, 1895 advertisement in the London edition of the Free Press begins “The World's Great Humorist, the Famous M. Quad.”
- An example of the American Fables, “The Frog and the Traveller,” appeared in the London Free Press on June 8, 1889, p. 1. A column of “New Proverbs” appeared on July 2, 1892, p. 8.
- Detroit Free Press (London), March 10, 1883, p. 8.
- Ibid., Feb. 18, 1888, p. 1.
- Ibid., March 19, 1892, p. 8.
- Kunitz and Haycroft, op. cit., p. 77.
- Detroit Free Press (London), Jan. 9, 1892, p. 8.
- Ibid., Sept. 10, 1892.
- “Obituary.” The Times, London, Oct. 23, 1912, p. 11; Herd, op. cit., p. 220.
- On June 30, 1888, the required notice of publisher read: “Printed and Published by James Barr at the Free Press Building, 325 Strand, Lond.”
- Detroit Free Press (London), March 10, 1883, p. 7; Jan. 22, 1887, p. 5. A Miss Jennie Starkey appears in 1885 as “Household Editress.” The column was replaced by the “Young Folks” page in 1890.
- O'Reilley, “M. Quad's Philosophy,” p. 87.
- Ibid.
- Crane and Barr were good friends and Crane, on his deathbed, asked Barr to complete a novel which he then had underway. It subsequently appeared as The O'Ruddy.
- Detroit Free Press (London), Dec. 5, 1885, p. 4. Earlier, on June 20, 1885, the London Free Press also boasted: “During the six months ending in June we have published stories by 23 noted writers; the Century, by six noted writers; The Atlantic, by three; and Harper's, by fourteen. We have thus published as many authors, and as noted ones, as the three great magazines.”