Herbert Greenhough Smith

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Herbert Greenhough Smith (1855 – 14 January 1935) was the first editor of The Strand Magazine which published many of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. His active support and encouragement to Conan Doyle, and the magazine's vigorous promotion of the Sherlock Holmes character, had much to do with the character's success.

Born in Stroud in 1855, the son of Alfred and Eleanor Smith, Herbert was given his mother's maiden name as a middle name and subsequently used it as a double surname. Herbert married Dorothy Vernon Muddock (b. 1882), the daughter of James Edward Preston Muddock in 1900.

Smith began editing The Strand in 1891, retiring in 1930. He died on 14 January 1935.

[edit] Publications

In addition to writing the occasional article in The Strand Magazine, he wrote the following books -

The Chevalier Bayard
A Court Duel
Castle Sombras
Odd Moments : Essays in Little
Stranger than Fiction - Thrills of History
Romance of History
What I Think - A Symposium on Books and Other Things by Famous Writers of Today (Editor)

[edit] Screen Portrayals

In the Sherlock Holmes spoof film Without a Clue the character played by Peter Cook called Norman Greenhough (who was publisher for the Holmes stories) was clearly based on Greenhough Smith.

He has also been portrayed on television, by Ralph Riach in Murder Rooms, and by Allan Corduner in The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle.