SORROW IN LONDON AT PENDING END OF "STRAND" MAGAZINE

Wanganui Chronicle, 16 December 1949, Page 5

SORROW IN LONDON AT PENDING END OF "STRAND" MAGAZINE

Publication Which Found Sir A. Conan Doyle And His "Sherlock Holmes"

LONDON, Dee. 15 (Rec. 6 pm).—-Lament for the “Strand” magazine, which is to end publication next March, is sounded by “The Tinies” in a leading article.

“The Strand,” it says, “was a popular influence of great importance in that lively period of English story telling, both short find long, which reached its height in the nineties.

Within six months of its first publication, the Sherlock Holmes short stories had begun to appear and from that date until his death Conan Doyle never wrote a Holmes story for any other paper. “That,” continues “The Times,” might be glory enough for many a magazine, but in fact Conan Doyle was only one of a remarkable group of contributors. They included Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, W. W. Jacobs, A. E. W. Mason and Grant Allen, with a ‘later happy period,’ when Wodehouse’s Jeeves and the

pleasant trifles of Denis Mackail were the chief dishes.” Other London newspapers pay tribute to “The Strand” and reproduce some of its earlier illustrations, one showing Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson on the trail in “The Adventures of Silver Blaze.” _ It is recalled that Conan Doyle, then an unknown Portsmouth doctor, was paid £35 for his first short story “a Scandal in Bohemia.” Later he was paid £lOO per 1000 words. Other noted authors who wrote for It included Sir Max Zeerbohm, Edgar Wallace, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and E. Nesbitt. Bernard Shaw wrote for it occasionally. Its editor, MacDonald Hastings, has stated: “We still have the same circulation as we had in 1939 well over 100,000, but rising costs and the fantastic price of paper and production have beaten us.”—Special N.Z.P.A. Correspondent.