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Our Victorian Magazine Collection:  The Strand Magazine

Home > About Our Victorian Magazines > The Strand VictorianVoices.net has made all our volumes of The Strand available on Archive.org. Visit the magazine pages for download links, or visit our magazine download page to see all available magazines. To many, The Strand is synonymous with "Sherlock Holmes." Founded in 1891, The Strand was a true "general-interest magazine," offering short stories for men (daring adventures in the unexplored corners of the world), women (love and romance), and children (fairy tales from around the world). It featured humor, history, current events, political satire, biographical accounts of contemporary notables and royalty, and much more. If you're looking for well researched and lavishly illustrated glimpses of contemporary Victorian life - from a day with the Thames police to a visit with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade - you'll find it here! The magazine was edited by George Newnes, and was wildly popular. In 1891, a new "light" appeared on Newnes' horizon: Arthur Conan Doyle, who had already sold one anonymous story to the magazine and now put in a second appearance with a little thing called "A Scandal in Bohemia." Newnes was thrilled. Doyle, unfortunately, was less thrilled to find that the public wanted more and more Holmes stories, while Doyle himself wanted to focus more on other projects, including historical fiction. Hence, you'll find many volumes in which Doyle provides non-Holmesian tales, such as "Rodney Stone," "The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard," or "The Tragedy of the Korosko." (Doyle continued to contribute to The Strand after its Victorian years; in 1902, the magazine serialized his novel The Lost World; "Brigadier Gerard" reappears in 1903 - and then there is the long-awaited return of Sherlock Holmes in 1904.) While Doyle may be the name most of us associate with The Strand, this magazine featured classic tales by a host of the world's best-known authors, including Jules Verne, Bret Harte, Mark Twain and many others. When Sherlock Holmes was absent, the magazine tried to appease the public's growing appetite for mystery tales with the adventures of detectives such as Martin Hewitt and Dick Donovan. The Strand also published many translations of fiction from other countries. The Strand was also noted for its extensive (and excellent) use of photography. Newnes wanted virtually every spread to have an illustration of some kind. Most issues included both photography and artwork, including Sydney Paget's illustrations that more or less crystallized our image of Holmes in his deerstalker cap. Over time the emphasis shifted more toward photography than artwork - to the point of attempting to illustrated short stories with posed photographs! Photography became an editorial focus as well (no pun intended); as photography improved, The Strand sought more and more images of "curiosities," eccentric people and performances, queer sights, and of course, the odd doings of those strange folks in America. Monthly issues of The Strand were compiled into 6-month volumes: January-June and July-December (indicated as "A" and "B" on this site). Each volume included 700-800 pages. The magazine ceased publication in 1950; the title was resurrected by an American publisher in 2000, and now belongs to a popular mystery magazine. In addition to the volumes that we've uploaded, many free digitized volumes of The Strand are available from Archive.org. The best collection is the bound volumes 1891-1922, which can be downloaded as one giant zipped file of all the issues. (It takes quite awhile to download!) MORE INFORMATION: The History of The Strand http://www.strandmag.com/hist.htm The Strand Magazine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strand_Magazine/

View the Issues On This Site: 1891A 1891B 1892A 1892B 1893A 1893B 1894A 1894B 1895A 1895B 1896A 1896B 1897A 1897B 1898A 1898B 1899A 1899B 1900A 1900B 1901A 1901B