The Sketch was a British illustrated newspaper weekly, which focused on high society

High society (group)

High society refers to a category of people deemed to have greater social status or prestige, and their related affiliations, social events and practices which together define a group variously referred to as "Society" or high society. Such groups are defined by certain key events and cultural...

 and the aristocracy

Aristocracy

Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...

. It ran for 2,989 issues between February 1, 1893 and June 17, 1959. It was published by the Illustrated London News

Illustrated London News

The Illustrated London News was the world's first illustrated weekly newspaper; the first issue appeared on Saturday 14 May 1842. It was published weekly until 1971 and then increasingly less frequently until publication ceased in 2003.-History:...

Company and was primarily a society magazine with regular features on royalty and the aristocracy, theatre, cinema and art studies. It had a high photographic content with many studies of society ladies

Socialite

A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

 and their children as well as regular layouts of point to point racing meetings and similar events.

Clement Shorter (1857-1926) and William Ingram

Sir William Ingram, 1st Baronet

Sir William James Ingram, 1st Baronet was Managing Director of The Illustrated London News and a Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons in three periods between 1878 and 1895....

 started The Sketch in 1893, although Shorter's Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry has 1892. Shorter was the first editor, from 1893 to 1900, succeeded by John Latey

John Latey

John Latey was a British journalist and writer.Latey was a son of John Lash Latey , editor of the Illustrated London News from 1858 to 1890. He himself wrote parliamentary sketches for the ILN under the pseudonym 'The Silent Member'. He also wrote novels and translated Dumas and Paul Féval...

 (until 1902) and then Keble Howard. Bruce Ingram was editor from 1905 to 1946.

The magazine is chiefly remembered for first publishing the illustrations of Bonzo the dog

Bonzo the dog

Bonzo the dog is a fictional character created by British artist George E. Studdy in the early 1920s. He was a chubby little white pup with sparse black spots, a stubby tail and big blue eyes...

 by George E. Studdy

George E. Studdy

George Ernest Studdy was a British commercial artist. He is best remembered for his creation of Bonzo the dog, a fictional character in the early 1920s that first appeared in The Sketch Magazine....

 (from 1921). It also published series of short stories within its pages, one per issue, with authors such as Walter de la Mare

Walter de la Mare

Walter John de la Mare , OM CH was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners"....

 and Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. S. T...

. Under the editorship of Bruce Ingram, it was also the first magazine to publish short stories by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

, starting with The Affair at the Victory Ball in issue 1571, dated March 7, 1923. Altogether, Christie wrote 49 stories for The 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 volumes Poirot Investigates

Poirot Investigates

Poirot Investigates is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by The Bodley Head in March 1924. In the eleven stories, famed eccentric detective Hercule Poirot solves a variety of mysteries involving greed, jealousy and revenge. The American version of...

(1924), The Big Four

The Big Four (novel)

The Big Four is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons on January 27, 1927 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. It features Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, and Inspector Japp...

(1927), Partners in Crime (1929), Poirot's Early Cases

Poirot's Early Cases

Poirot's Early Cases is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club in September 1974. The book retailed at £2.25...

(1974) and While the Light Lasts and Other Stories

While the Light Lasts and Other Stories

While the Light Lasts and Other Stories is a short story collection by Agatha Christie first published in the UK on August 4 1997 by HarperCollins...

(1997). Christie dedicated the 1953 novel A Pocket Full of Rye

A Pocket Full of Rye

A Pocket Full of Rye is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 9, 1953, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence and the US edition at $2.75...

to Ingram.

The Sketch printed photographs by Howard Coster

Howard Coster

Howard Sydney Musgrave Coster was a British photographer, opening a London studio in 1926. He was a self-styled 'Photographer of Men'....

 (1865-1959), and illustrations by H. M. Bateman

H. M. Bateman

Henry Mayo Bateman was a British humorous artist and cartoonist.H. M. Bateman was noted for his "The Man Who..." series of cartoons, featuring comically exaggerated reactions to minor and usually upper-class social gaffes, such as "The Man Who Lit His Cigar Before the Loyal Toast", "The Man Who...

, Max Beerbohm

Max Beerbohm

Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson.-Early life:...

, Percy Venner Bradshaw (1877-1965), Thomas Arthur Browne (1870-1910), Hilda Cowham (1873-1964), Annie Fish (1890-1964), John Hargrave

John Hargrave

John Gordon Hargrave , nicknamed 'White Fox', was one of the leading figures in the Social Credit movement in British politics.-Early life:...

, John Hassall

John Hassall (illustrator)

John Hassall was born in Walmer, Kent on 21 May 1868, died 8 March 1948 and was an English illustrator.Hassall educated in Worthing, at Newton Abbot College and at Neuenheim College, Heidelberg. After twice failing entry to The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he emigrated to Manitoba in Canada...

 (1868-1948), Phil May, Bernard Partridge, Melton Prior

Melton Prior

Melton Prior , was an English artist and war correspondent for the Illustrated London News from the early 1870′s until 1904. Prior was one of the leading illustrators of late Victorian Britain, noted for his ability to quickly sketch scenes...

 (1845-1910), W. Heath Robinson

W. Heath Robinson

William Heath Robinson was an English cartoonist and illustrator, best known for drawings of eccentric machines....

, Sidney Sime

Sidney Sime

Sidney Sime was an English artist in the late Victorian and succeeding periods, mostly remembered for his fantastic and satirical artwork, especially his story illustrations for Irish author Lord Dunsany.-Early life:...

 and Bert Thomas (1883-1966).

Writers included Carleton Allen

Carleton Allen

Sir Carleton Kemp Allen MC KC was an Australian-born professor and Warden of Rhodes House, University of Oxford.-Early life and student career:...

, Lucie Armstrong (1851-1907), Nora Hopper, William Robertson Nicoll

William Robertson Nicoll

Sir William Robertson Nicoll CH was a Scottish Free Church minister, journalist, editor, and man of letters.Nicoll was born in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire, the son of a Free Church minister...

, and John Courtenay Trewin

John Courtenay Trewin

John Courtenay Trewin OBE was a British journalist, writer and drama critic. Since 2000, an award has been given by the Critics' Circle for the best Shakespearean performance of the Year: "The John And Wendy Trewin Award For Best Shakespearian Performance".Trewin was born in Plymouth, although...

.

The British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

holds a complete run of The Sketch.