(1826–1913; pseud, “Antares Skorpios” and “Felix Ryark”) b. 21 Oct 1826, Co. Dublin; eldest son of the Rev. Wm. and his sister-in-law Catherine Barlow [née Disney], and marked by her attempted suicide and early death - arising from a thwarted love for Sir William Hamilton Rowan; ed. Wakefield Grammar School, Yorkshire; entered TCD, 1842; grad . BA (Sen. Moderator, 1847), awarded Junior Fellowship, 1850; grad. MA (1852); ordained [q.d.); opposed the doctrine of eternal damnation from the pulpit; as Antares Skorpios”, issued History of a World of Immortals Without a God (1891) - later republ. under his own name as The Immortals’ Great Quest (1909).

m. Mary Louisa Barlow, a cousin, with four sons and three daughters incl. the novelist Jane Barlow [q.v.]; .Appt. to Erasmus Smith Chair of Modern history; iss. A Short History of the Normans in South Europe (1866); served as Secretary of the College Council; boycotted the 1892 tercentenary of TCD in protest against the power of Senior Fellows; appt. Senior Fellow, 1893; appt. Bursar, 1893–98, curtailing investment in Irish estates and pursuing policy of strictness with tenants of college lands; elected VicePprovost, 1899, resign in 1908;.

joined the English Society for Psychical Research, 1901 in the wake of his daughter Jane; helped found the Dublin Dublin section which conducted séances and sessions of automatic-writing and Ouija board communication with the dead; d. 4 July 1913, at home, in The Cottage, Raheny, Dublin [now a OPH]; his Doctors at War: The French Medical Profession [in] the 17th Century (1914) appeared posthumously; his use of his daughter’s name for some publications has caused confusion unravelled by Anne van Weerden in Catherine Disney: a biographical sketch (2019) and other writings. RIA

• A History of a World of Immortals without God: translated from an Unpublished Manuscript in the Library of a Continental University, by “Antares Skorpios” (Dublin: William McGee; London: Simpkin, Marshall 1891), xi, 177pp., 19cm. [copy in TCD Lib.]; Do. [rep. edn.] as The Immortals’ Great Quest / translated from an unpublished manuscript in the library of a continental university by J[ames] W[illiam] Barlow (London; Smith, Elder & Co. 1909), xii, 177pp.; 20cm/8° [details at COPAC online cite copies in copyright libraries TCD, Oxford, Cambridge; Nat. Lib. of Scotland; BL [known to be by JWB]. See copy at Interet Archive - online; accessed 15.11.2021.
• A Strange Land, by “Felix Ryark” (London: Hutchinson 1908) [still disputed].

It appears that Jane Barlow herself employed the pseudonym “Antares Skorpios” - thus leading to the assumption that she was the author of A History of a World ... without God which is now known to have been written by her father, James Barlow. In a correspondence with RICORSO, Anne van Weerden who writes that the second edition (1909) - which bears a variant title and James William Barlow’s own name - is really the same book with an added preface. She further argues on stylistic grounds that A Strange Land by “Felix Ryark” [pseud.] was probably written by James William also. She thus writes: ‘For a long time there was confusion about who wrote it, as can be seen from the note on the title page. The novel was soon withdrawn, perhaps because its mixed reviews might harm the reception of Jane’s first publication in 1892. It was republished in 1909, under James William’s own name, as The Immortals’ Great Quest.’ (Catherine Disney, 2019 - which incorporates her examination of the writings of Jane and William Barlow - online; accessed 15.11.2021.)

 Elsewhere, she remarks that the most compelling evidence that Jane Barlow did not write the History of a World of Immortals without God has been found in a letter of hers [Jane Barlow] to Alfred Russel Wallace of 1901 in which ‘she names her father as the author’ according to Maria Devine, who found the letter (In the Common Light of Day [MA Thesis], Carlow: Institute of Technology 2017, p.8 - available online).’ Van Weerden also argues that A Strange Land (1908), published under the pseudonym “Felix Ryark”, was probably written by Jane’s father, calling it ‘a novel by Felix Ryark [which] is for me beyond doubt by James William Barlow, but also ascribed to Jane Barlow’, in her list of works by the Barlows (Catherine Disney, 2019). By contrast, Jack Fennell remarks in his study of James William Barlow that ‘the traditional “found utopia” was still making occasional appearances too, as in Jane Barlow’s A Strange Land (1908), when no interplanetary journey is necessary.’ (Fennell, ‘James William Barlow (1826-1913)’, in The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature, 18, Samhain 2021, p.32.) [Fennell cites Van Weerden in connection with Barlow Snr’s unorthodox theology and gives her lists her Catherine Disney (2019) in his bibliography though without a page reference [see infra].

Bibl.: Anne van Weerden, A Catherine Disney: A Biographical Sketch (Stedum: J. Fransje van Weerden 2019) - with revised version online; and Jack Fennell, ‘James William Barlow (1826-1913)’, in The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature, 18 [Swan River Press] (Samhain 2021), pp.29-36, p.32; available at JSTOR - online; accessed 15.11.2021.]

1. Bibliography of Utopian Literature in English on A Strange Land by Felix Ryark (1908) writes, ‘[s]ometimes ascribed to her father, James William Barlow (1826-1913), but Rolf Loeber and Magda Loeber with Anne Mullin Burnham, A Guide to Irish Fiction, 1650-1900 (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2006) lists it as by Jane Barlow adding that the original written catalog of the National Library of Ireland ‘has it by her.’ (Utopian Literature in English: Annotated Bibliography, by Lyman Tower Sargent - Available online; noticed by Anne van Weerden - 24.06.2019.) [See also synopsis, infra.]

2. COPAC listing for A History of a World of Immortals without God (1891) [held at TCD] with a note reading: ‘Both [M.B.] Stillwell and [Samuel] Halkett & [John] Laing [Dictionary of anonymous and pseudonymous English literature, Edin: Oliver & Boyd 1926-62] erroneously attributed the pseudonym [“Antares Skorpios”] to James Barlow’s daughter (Glenn Negley, Utopia literature: A Bibliography [Regents’ Press of Kansas 1977], p.10.’) [See COPAC > James Barlow, History [... &c.] - as supra; accessed 25.06.2019].

1] Fr. Stephen Brown calls A History of a World of Immortals Without God (Dublin: William McGee; London: Simpkin, Marshall 1891) a work of Utopian sci-fi concerning the planet Venus which is often attrib. to Jane Barlow but was actually written by her father, Rev. James Barlow. Brown also remarks that Mac’s Adventures and Mice and Men [recte The Battle of the Frogs and Mice] appears to be by Barlow Snr. (Brown, Ireland in Fiction, 1919).

2] Other titles by James William Barlow include De origini mali: An essay concerning Modern Scientific Atheism (Dublin: Hodges & Figgis 1871), q.pp. [held at BL and TCD] and Doctors at War: Studies in the French Medical Profession circa the 17th Century (London: Nutt [1914]), 144pp. [BL, Oxon., NLWales, UEdin, Wellcome; both listed in JISC Literary Hub - online; noticed by Anne van Weerden, 25.06.2019].

Jack Fennell, ‘James William Barlow (1826-1913)’, in The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature, 18 [Swan River Press] (Samhain 2021), pp.29-36: ‘[...] Barlow’s theological outlook, influenced by his mother’s suicide attempt and the traumatic revelations of her romance with Hamilton, was unorthodox. He repudiated the doctrine of damnation, and argued against the notion that God would sentence a wayward soul to eternal punishment in Hell: instead, he maintained that the end of the soul was a return to the nothingness from which it had emerged at birth - a belief scholar Anne van Weerden puts forward in her biographical sketch Catherine Disney [2019], and feels was likely inspired by his mother’s description of the peace she had felt following her suicide attempt. In 1959 Barlow made this the central theme of a sermon he gave in the Trinity College chapel, and as a result he was publicly rebuked by Rev. Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, a turn of events so scandalous that it took up most of Barlow’s obituaty in the Freeman’s Journal fifty-four years later. He was stripped of his licence to preach or officiate any religious services - the reason given in an account in the Freeman’s Journal being that his theological conclusions were “unsound”. He published these arguments in Eternal Punishment and Eternal Death (1865), and there is no denying their echoes in his sole work of fiction, “which, like everything else he wrote, displayed great originality” (Freeman’s Journal, 7 July 1913).’ (Jack Fennell, ‘James William Barlow (1826-1913)’, in The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature, 18, Samhain/Winter 2021, p.30 - available at JSTOR - online; accessed 15.11.2021.] [Note: Fennell supplies no footnote reference for Van Weerden but cites her works on Sir William Rowan Hamilton (2017) and on Catherine Disney (2109) in his bibliography listing.]

See also Fennell’s remarks on James Wm. Barlow’s sci-fi novel: ‘History of a World of Immortals Without a God was published in Dublin in 1891 with the suitably Swiftian sub-title: ‘Translated from an Unpublished Manuscript in the Library of a Continental University’. This first edition was published under the name of “Antares Skorpios”, a pseudonym his daughter Jane Barlow had used for some of her own work. This has given rise to the occasional misrepresentation of Jane Barlow as the novel’s author. [Goes on to give a summary of History, which follows the story of Gervaas Varken, a ship’s surgeon who finds himself on Venus, ‘a world without hardship where universal equality is taken for granted’ (Fennell, p.31) - and without animal slaughter or bureaucracy (teachers, bankers, policemen) where there is no sexual reproduction and equal rights for women. (op. cit., p.31.)

Confusion of authors: Fennell quotes an Irish Times review of 1 March 1909 in which the reviewer writes: ‘It is curious to see the distinguished author at his advanced age venturing into a field where his daughter, Miss Jane Barlow, has long enjoyed such a high reputation.’ (Fennell, p.34.) He continues: ‘Jane had previously confirmed James Barlow’s authorship of the novel in a letter to Rev. Alfred Russel [sic] Wallace on 29 Dec. 1901, when she thanked the clergyman for his appreciation of her “Father’s romance”, further commenting [34]: “[H]e has no doubt the Hesperian scientists soon found their hypothesis of a storm-causing satellite untenable, and that he agrees with you about the impossibility of so extensive a circle of acquaintances for people possessing merely human memory, but thinks it would be hard to fix limits, for the development of the faculty among Hesperians.”’ (Letter in British Library; here pp.34-35.)