Like a wily villain, The Strand (strandmag.com) always seems to have something new and tricky up its sleeve. In the issue of the mystery-themed quarterly magazine now on newsstands, you’ll find the first installment of a newly discovered work by Graham Greene — a publishing coup that has brought worldwide attention to the print magazine published in Birmingham, Mich.
“I was interested in getting the rights to this because I’m a fan of Graham Greene and it was a work of great quality — more than just because it has generated tons of publicity,” said Andrew Gulli, 33, managing editor.
But the notoriety is nice too, he acknowledged. The five-part mystery by the late Greene, best known for brooding novels such as “The Power and the Glory” (1940) and “The End of the Affair” (1951), was left unfinished by the author. Pending permission of Greene’s family, The Strand plans to stage a contest for readers to write the last chapter, Gulli said.
The mystery was recently discovered by a Greene scholar digging through the author’s papers. Before you could say, “The butler did it,” Gulli had snapped up the rights to publish it.
That is in keeping with Gulli’s mission, which is to restore The Strand’s lustrous name to literary prominence. If the name rings a bell, it ought to; from 1891 to 1950, when declining circulation did it in, the London-based Strand was one of the best-known periodicals in the world. Specializing in mysteries, it counted among its contributors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Dorothy L. Sayers, Rudyard Kipling and P.G. Wodehouse.
A decade ago, Gulli decided to revive the brand. So far, The Strand has attracted about 57,000 subscribers and contributors such as Alexander McCall Smith and Ruth Rendell. And while the original Strand may have sported Sherlock Holmes, the new one has something even the prescient Holmes probably couldn’t have foreseen: a nifty Web site, with appetite-whetting tidbits from the print issue and links to interviews, contests and features.
In an earlier issue, Gulli printed a previously unpublished story by Mark Twain.
It’s no mystery why Gulli prefers the Midwest to New York, even though most magazines maintain their editorial offices in the latter. “A lot of New York publishers are struggling,” Gulli said. “Our expenses are so much less. I can’t imagine renting an office in New York. I love it here.”
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