For a brief period before the rise in popularity of Sherlock Holmes and the serialized short story, The Strand Magazine (1891–1950) published a notable quantity of short stories in translation by authors from across continental Europe. The project of literary editor Herbert Greenhough Smith, these stories ‘from foreign sources’ received a lukewarm reception in the periodicals marketplace. Scholars often credit the briefness of this editorial experiment as due to the arrival of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. I argue instead that, despite Greenhough Smith’s belief that a British periodical could thrive by primarily publishing works by foreign authors, his audience was not particularly interested in the idea beyond its initial novelty.