The Sketch began publication in 1893 as a light-hearted sister paper to The Illustrated London News and described itself as ‘A Journal of Art and Actuality’. It was published weekly and was for ‘the cultivated people who in their leisure moments look for light reading and amusing pictures, imbued with a high artistic value’.

The Sketch was the first newspaper to publish the short stories of Agatha Christie, who wrote 49 stories for the paper between 1923 and 1924. The first of her works to appear in The Sketch was The Grey Cells of M. Poirot. I. - The Affair at the Victory Ball. Christie was already renowned for her novels, and was described as the ‘creator of the most interesting detective since Sherlock Holmes’. Several pictures of her appear alongside the first part of her initial short story. Christie was not the only writer to feature within the pages of The Sketch, as the paper also featured short stories from other authors such as Algernon Blackwood with his short series, The Graceless Pair, and the first published work of Walter de la Mare, Kismet, under the pseudonym Walter Ramal.

The Sketch was also home of Bonzo the Dog and, later, Ooloo the Cat, wonderfully illustrated by George E. Studdy in a full colour page weekly feature during the 1920s. Cartoonist William Heath Robinson was also among the many illustrators employed by The Sketch, who was famous for drawing complex and fantastic machinery.

The Sketch ceased publication in 1959.