Ripley, Robert L. (Robert LeRoy)
"Believe it or not! [1929]" by Robert L. Ripley is a collection of illustrated curiosities and odd facts written in the late 1920s. It assembles improbable-sounding truths, travel impressions, historical quirks, records, and paradoxes, all presented as brisk, image-driven vignettes. Expect an entertaining parade of strange-but-true anecdotes rather than a continuous narrative.The opening of the book sets the tone with a preface explaining that unbelievable truths fuel the author’s cartoons, recounting reader disbelief (like Lindbergh being the sixty-seventh nonstop Atlantic crosser) and the strip’s accidental origins, global fact-hunting, and seemingly inexhaustible supply of oddities. A sprawling contents list teases the range, then “An Odyssey of Oddities” dives into a vivid travelogue of Benares: crowded ghats, sacred yet unsanitary waters, a detailed cremation at the burning ghat, and portraits of ascetics (a blind sun-gazer, men on beds of nails, “ever-standing” devotees, and inch-worming pilgrims), alongside a sharp primer on Hindu beliefs and castes. The narrative then shifts into rapid-fire curios: counterintuitive measurements (feathers vs. gold; winter vs. summer vinegar), medical anomalies (a child with premature aging), extreme records (a 110-round boxing match), historical oddities (a man “seen to death,” the sky-as-clock method, punishment by proxy), and assorted marvels (names of God with four letters, a day’s “presidency,” a river of acid, a night-seeing boy,…
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