The Sketch was a British illustrated weekly journal. It ran for 2,989 issues between 1 February 1893[1] and 17 June 1959. It was published by theIllustrated London News Company and was primarily a society magazine with regular features onroyalty,aristocracy andhigh society, as well astheatre,cinema andthe arts. It had a high photographic content with many studies ofsociety ladies and their children as well as regular layouts ofpoint to point racing meetings and similar events.
Clement Shorter andWilliam Ingram startedThe Sketch in 1893.[2] Shorter was the first editor, from 1893 to 1900, succeeded byJohn Latey (until his death in 1902) and thenKeble Howard.[3]Bruce Ingram was editor from 1905 to 1946.
The magazine is remembered for first publishing the illustrations ofBonzo the dog byGeorge E. Studdy (from 1921). It featured series of short stories within its pages, one per issue, with authors such asWalter de la Mare andAlgernon Blackwood. Under the editorship of Bruce Ingram, it was also the first magazine to publish short stories byAgatha Christie, starting with "The Affair at the Victory Ball" in issue 1571 on 7 March 1923. Altogether, Christie wrote 49 stories forThe Sketch between 1923 and 1924 (just under a third of her total output of short stories) which were later collected into some or all of the contents of the volumesPoirot Investigates (1924),The Big Four (1927),Partners in Crime (1929),Poirot's Early Cases (1974), andWhile the Light Lasts and Other Stories (1997). Christie dedicated the 1953 novelA Pocket Full of Rye to Ingram.
The Sketch printed photographs byHoward Coster,[4] and illustrations byH. M. Bateman,Max Beerbohm,Edmund Blampied,Percy Venner Bradshaw (1877–1965),Thomas Arthur Browne,Hilda Cowham,Annie Fish,John Hargrave,John Hassall,Phil May,Bernard Partridge,Melton Prior,W. Heath Robinson,Josep Segrelles,Sidney Sime,Olive Snell,Bert Thomas, and Thomas Downey.
Writers includedCarleton Allen,Lucie Armstrong,Nora Hopper,William Robertson Nicoll andJohn Courtenay Trewin.[3]Keble Howard, editor until 1905, continued to contribute a column titledMotley Notes until two-weeks prior to his death, his final piece appearing on 14 March 1928.[5]
TheBritish Library holds a complete run ofThe Sketch.[6]
