Heralds of Fame

Novel first published in 1896. According to Wikipedia: "Robert Barr (September 16, 1849 - October 21, 1912[1]) was a British-Canadian short story writer and novelist, born in Glasgow, Scotland . . . In London of the 1890s Barr became a more prolific author-publishing a book a year-and was familiar with many of the best-selling authors of his day, including Bret Harte and Stephen Crane. Most of his literary output was of the crime genre, then quite in vogue. When Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were becoming well-known Barr published in the Idler the first Holmes parody, "The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs" (1892), a spoof ..."