An Alpine divorce

by Robert Barr

An Alpine Divorce by Robert Barr

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Thriller, Classics, Audiobook, Crime, Adult

11 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 14, 2017

About the author

Robert Barr (September 16, 1849 – October 21, 1912) was a British-Canadian short story writer and novelist, born in Glasgow, Scotland.

Robert Barr emigrated with his parents to Upper Canada at age four and was educated in Toronto at Toronto Normal School. Barr became a teacher and eventual headmaster of the Central School of Windsor, Ontario. While he had that job he began to contribute short stories—often based on personal experiences—to the Detroit Free Press. In 1876 Barr quit his teaching position to become a staff member of that publication, in which his contributions were published with the pseudonym "Luke Sharp." This nom de plume was derived from the time he attended school in Toronto. At that time he would pass on his daily commute a shop sign marked, "Luke Sharpe, Undertaker", a combination of words Barr considered amusing in their incongruity. Barr was promoted by the Detroit Free Press, eventually becoming its news editor.

In 1881 Barr decided to "vamoose the ranch", as he stated, and relocated to London, to establish there the weekly English edition of the Detroit Free Press. In 1892 he founded the magazine The Idler, choosing Jerome K. Jerome as his collaborator (wanting, as Jerome said, "a popular name"). He retired from its co-editorship in 1895. 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 that was continued a decade later in another Barr story, "The Adventure of the Second Swag" (1904). Despite the jibe at the growing Holmes phenomenon Barr and Doyle remained on very good terms. Doyle describes him in his memoirs Memories and Adventures as, "a volcanic Anglo—or rather Scot-American, with a violent manner, a wealth of strong adjectives, and one of the kindest natures underneath it all."

Robert Barr died from heart disease on October 21, 1912, at his home in Woldingham, a small village to the southeast of London.

Reviews

[Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

iconic. i love women.

[Iris Santana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cunty

[Indieflower · Rating 4 out of 5]

A satisfying little story with a twist in it's tale.

[itselv]

قصة قصيرة عن زوج غير متكافئ في عهدٍ كان فيه الطلاق بدون جرم من أحد الطرفين غير مقبول. كلاهما يكره الآخر ويعرف بكره الآخر له.
يقرر الزوج أن ينهي الزيجة بطريقته، فيخطط أن يأخذ زوجته في رحلة تسلق الجبال عازمًا على أن يتخلص منها هناك.

وفي رفض المجتمع والقانون الإنجليزي آنذاك للإنفصال تذكرتُ حديث النبي ﷺ الذي يُظهر الاهتمام بجانب تآلف القلوب واختلافها في العلاقات الزوجية في الإسلام:
"أنّ امرأةَ ثابتِ بنِ قيسٍ أتتِ النبي ﷺ فقالت: يا رسول الله، ثابتُ بنُ قيسٍ، إنِّي ما أعيبُ عليهِ في خُلُقٍ ولا دينٍ ، ولكنِّي أكرَهُ الكُفرَ في الإسلامِ. فقال رسول الله ﷺ:«أتردِّينَ عليه حديقتهُ؟». قالت: نعم. قال رسول الله ﷺ:«اقبلِ الحديقة وطلِّقها تَطليقةً»."

تكمن أهمية هذه الرواية حاليًا أنها صارت اسمًا لظاهرة تخلّي الرجال عن شريكاتهم في جبلٍ أو رابية، إما بتخطيطٍ مسبق لتركها تهلك وحدها، بالاستفادة من صعوبة إثبات شبهة جنائية، أو بسبب مشادّة تصاعدت أثناء الرحلة.
وقد تفاقمت الظاهرة فسجّلت وفيّات وقضايا قتل عمد أو قتل ناجم عن إهمال، وعدم تناسب العقوبة مع الجريمة جعلها قضية رأي عام.

"His hatred had carried him far."
من السهل على الإنسان أن يصنع من أنانيته قضية عادلة، ومن قسوته رد فعل مشروع.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 4 out of 5]

A twisty short story worthy of O. Henry or Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour. You can read it here: https://americanliterature.com/author...

[Ivy · Rating 4 out of 5]

i better not get left behind on a hike

[Xavier Whitman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid little short story that had a very satisfying twist ending. It serves as an interesting critique on the strict divorce laws in the UK at the time. God bless no fault divorce and the countless lives it has saved. Also, enjoy a story from this time period where the woman gets to have a degree of agency, even if it is for revenge and being conniving.

Read this after being recommended it by SwellEntertainment as being the source for the term “alpine divorce”. It is always interesting to see where terms that are starting to enter the public zeitgeist for better or worse come from.

[Federico DN · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very Good.

This was quite good, but not going to review it.

For the moment at least.

It’s public domain. You can find it HERE.

-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1900] [20p] [Fiction] [3.5] [Conditional Recommendable]
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Muy Bueno!

Estuvo bastante bien, pero no voy a reseñarlo.

Al menos por ahora.

Es dominio público, lo pueden encontrar ACA.

-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1900] [20p] [Ficción] [3.5] [Recomendable Condicional]
-----------------------------------------------

[Rebecca Crunden]

Oof, that twist!

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[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

The saying ' Revenge is a dish best served cold' definitely has meaning in this Alpine divorce.

[Claire B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for her……….
Short stories are underrated, and also this should be longer.

[Brooke]

There's been a slew of stories in the news lately about "alpine divorces," and this short story was cited in a New York Times article as originating the term, so my curiosity was piqued. I really didn't like the hateful-woman twist at the end though. It felt tired. But to be fair, it was written in 1893.

Here's the more-timely article about alpine divorces: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/st...

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Annoyed.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Logging such a short story feels like cheating

[Jessica Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, sweet - filled with twist. 10/10 no crumbs.

[Beyza Patat · Rating 4 out of 5]

cool lil short story

[Anna Sokolowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paused the Swell Entertainment video on alpine divorce to read this so she wouldn’t spoil the twist for me and yeah, the twist didn’t disappoint.

[Rick Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting twist in this short story. A dysfunctional couple vacations in Switzerland as the husband plans to do away with the wife. He brings her up to a precipice and prepares to do the deed, when things suddenly go in an unexpected direction.

[Mairead · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://americanliterature.com/author...

Alpine divorce;

Short story published in 1893

“You spoke a moment ago of your hatred of me; but you are a man, and your hatred is nothing to mine.”
She is referring to the fact that she believes women to be a sex capable of the greatest emotion of hate, feeling it more strongly than any man ever could. Even in her most strongest hatred, her greatest act of hate and violenece is not murder but suicide. She cannot even fathom the fact that her horrid and bitter husband could ever think to murder her, and she thinks she is the smarter one by planning this grand scheme of setting him up for her murder after she jumps off the cliff. Ironically he was that evil and horrid enough to plan to kill her by pushing her off that very cliff. Even till the end, her heart could not understand how he could feel such a strong emotion of hate that he would want to kill the woman he once promised to love and cherish for the entirety of his life. Womans greatest act of hate is suicide, and mans is murder.

“I know there is no thought of murder in your heart,”
Once again, we overestimate the gentility of man; the hatred they are capable of feeling for the ones they chose to love, proven in the despicable actions that they chose to carry out.

“Now and then a strange fear arose in his mind that she might cling to him and possibly drag him over the precipice with her.”
Up to the last, he only thought about how he would be impacted by her death; no remorse, hesitations, or change of heart, even after she was the bigger person and spoke first about her regrets in their relationship and her own wishes that things had been different.

Its giving Gone Girl

I choose the bear

[Atlas Wolfgang · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating with partial stars would be 4.5.

"You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand"
-The Mountain Goats, "No Children"

I'm here from Swell Entertainment, like a lot of other reviewers.

This is a very fast read that I would recommend to people finding out about "alpine divorce" as a concept. It has some solid messaging on the type of hatred that can flourish when marriage is the default and divorce is not an accessible option. I think the twist is very well-done, and it highlights just how little the husband knows compared to how much he thinks he knows. In his mind, nobody would be any the wiser if he pushed his wife off of the Outlook; in reality, she had already alerted multiple people at the hotel. He also completely underestimates Mrs. Bodman's capacity to act as a free agent. He only considered the risk of her reacting to his own murder attempt by literally dragging him down with her. Instead, she ends up doing it in a metaphorical sense by acting first.

I think this does "female rage" better than some things that attempt it on purpose in 2026.

[Becki Tovey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read after learning about the worrying manslaughter cass and TikTok trend. 10 mins well spent.

The examination of the likelihood of meeting the right person a hundred years ago was amusing in modern context, where 6 billion people are connected and yet meeting someone still feels impossible. Great prose here.

Premise of the story is good. I would have liked a more expanded story, examining what led to this situation, and especially speaking from the wife’s point of view.

Questionable in terms of a feminist reading. The author does describe the wife as a “mad woman” and that she is naive to his plot, which does a bit of a disservice in my opinion. However the story had ended she likely would have died which could suggests the husband was deemed to carry out his plan?

A horrifying “trend” either way, and worth reflecting on women’s safety as it feels like we are still unequal.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tale of a bitter, dysfunctional couple whose mutual hatred finally comes to a head was recommended to me as a short but impactful read, and I have to say that was definitely fulfilled. I was absolutely left wanting more. What was the actual root of their hate, past being too similar in temperament? What were the past cruelties the wife refers to on their walk? But maybe, really, that’s the whole point – with contemporary laws around divorce being so completely stringent, who’s to say that simply not getting on couldn’t spiral over time for any couple to the same dramatic solution that both halves of this toxic marriage seem to come to? It’s a story that will stay with you afterwards, especially the ending.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever little, short story that has seen it's title go viral in a similar way to Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight. Apparently, heading out into the wilderness with your spouse has now taken on sinister possibilities.

"When you consider that a human being has the opportunity of being acquainted with only a few hundred people, and out of the few hundred that there are but a dozen or less whom he knows intimately, and out of the dozen, one or two friends at most, it will easily be seen, when we remember the number of millions who inhabit this world, that probably, since the earth was created, the right man has never yet met the right woman."

[Kow · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Why do you walk about like a wild animal?" he cried. "Come here and sit down beside me, and be still."

She faced him with a light he had never before seen in her eyes--a light of insanity and of hatred.

"I walk like a wild animal," she said, "because I am one. You spoke a moment ago of your hatred of me; but you are a man, and your hatred is nothing to mine. (...) I know there is no thought of murder in your heart, but there is in mine. I will show you, John Bodman, how much I hate you."

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a lot in the press lately about Alpine divorces where women are abandoned by boyfriends in nature/the unknown - expecting them to get lost. The phrase Alpine Divorce originates from the short story written by Robert Barr in 1893 about an unhappily married couple. The husband plans to kill his wife on a holiday in the Swiss Alps by pushing her off a cliff. But with forethought and planning on her part, she flings herself off a cliff having already framed him for her murder.

Short story. Great read.

[Malvina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, bitter tale with a dreadful twist that sent shivers down my spine. The term 'alpine divorce' refers to a couple who go out on a perilous 'nature date', often in high places, then one abruptly leaves the other in jeopardy to perish in the wilderness from something like 'exposure', citing they 'got separated' or 'she fell' or 'she got sick (or injured), I couldn't help her down' as an excuse. You get the drift, absolutely horrifying. You can read this short story in the public domain here: https://americanliterature.com/author... .

[chvang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Victorian England where a man cannot divorce his wife unless she is a criminal nor a woman divorce her husband unless he is both criminal and cruel, a husband who hates his wife plots her murder. He takes her on vacation to Switzerland, where he intends to kill her on an isolated hiking trail. But in a twist, his wife hates him, too--maybe even more and has set her own schemes in motion.

You can find it in Robert Barr's short story collection, Revenge! by Robert Barr ; with Twelve Illustrations by Lancelot Speed 1896 Leather Bound

[ADHorrorD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

Robert Barr's technique for storytelling is beautiful. A relatable introduction to the tale. You truly feel you are present with the characters as the plot thickens. A quick and easy read that everyone should take a moment to enjoy. I look forward to reading more from this author.

[Anthony David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the most riveting short story but the end is a bit of a shocker.

I read this because the term "alpine divorce" is making a rounds on the social medias and was told by one of my favorite YouTubers that this was required reading in order to understand its origins.

[Katie Willi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saw this book referenced in a news article about that dude a few months back that was charged with murdering his wife by abandoning her on a hike. This is a SUPER short read anyone can find online. Fun!