The Idler was an illustrated monthly magazine published in Great Britain from 1892 to 1911. It was founded by the author Robert Barr, who brought in the humorist Jerome K. Jerome as co-editor, and its contributors included many of the leading writers and illustrators of the time.
Content The Idler generally catered to the popular taste, printing light pieces and sensational fiction. The magazine published short stories, serialised novels, humour pieces, poetry, memoirs, travel writing, book and theatre reviews, interviews and cartoons. It also included a monthly feature called 'The Idlers' Club', in which a number of writers would offer their views on a particular topic.
Most of The Idlers contributors were popular and prolific writers of the time. Some of them, such as Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain and Ernest Bramah, are still read today.
Editors
February 1892 – July 1895: Jerome K. Jerome and Robert Barr August 1895 – November 1897: Jerome K. Jerome 1898–1901: Arthur Lawrence and Sidney Sime 1902–1911: Robert Barr
Contributors
Writers
William Livingston Alden Grant Allen R. M. Ballantyne Robert Barr"The Idler" Vol.2 August 1892 – January 1893 Arthur William Beckett Max Beerbohm Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes as M. A. Belloc Aimée Daniell Beringer as Mrs. Oscar Beringer Walter Besant Raymond Blathwayt Mary Elizabeth Braddon Addison Bright Robert Buchanan G. B. Burgin Thomas Burke Hall Caine William Canton Albert Chevalier Roy Compton Marie Corelli May Crommelin Aleister Crowley Guy de Maupassant Arthur Conan Doyle William Arthur Dunkerley Archibald Forbes H. Rider Haggard Kirby Hare Bret Harte William Hope Hodgson Jerome K. Jerome Rudyard Kipling Arthur H. Lawrence Eliza Lynn Linton Katherine Mansfield Richard Marsh Frank Mathew David Christie Murray J. F. Nisbet Barry Pain Joseph Parker James Payn W. Pett Ridge Eden Phillpotts Arthur Quiller-Couch as 'Q'. Lilian Quiller-Couch Jean Richepin Morley Roberts Frederick William Robinson William Clark Russell Francis Saltus Saltus Evelyn Sharp Robert H. Sherard George Robert Sims Lincoln Springfield Robert Louis Stevenson Mark Twain Allen Upward Mary Augusta Ward as Mrs Humphry H. G. Wells Gleeson White John Strange Winter (Henrietta E. V. Stannard) Israel Zangwill
Artists
Sydney Adamson Frank Barnard Lewis Baumer Aubrey Beardsley Thomas C.S. Benham Ada Bowley Alexander Stuart Boyd Frank Brangwyn Dion Clayton Calthrop Sydney Cowell Frank Cadogan Cowper Max Cowper Cynicus (Martin Anderson) A Hugh Fisher Archibald Stevenson Forrest (1869 - 1963) Frances L Fuller Florence Briscoe)) Ernest Goodwin James Grieg John Gulich Louis Gunnis Hal Hurst B. J. Hutchinson George Wylie Hutchinson Ronald Ian Richard Jack Ernest M. Jessop J. Kerr Lawson H. R. Millar John Bernard Partridge Charles Pears Frederick Pegram Melton Prior Andrew Scott Rankin Robert Sauber Sidney Sime F. Sketchley Penryn Stanley Frederic Villiers Rob Wagner Louis Wain John L. Wimbush
References
External links
Full text online from Project Gutenberg: Vol. 13, February-July 1893. Interview with Louis Wain by Roy Compton, originally published in The Idler in January 1896 (Vol VIII No. XLVIII.) . The Idler (1892-1911) - Indexes to Fiction (Victorian Fiction Research Guide)