02947cam a22003253u 450000100060000000300070000600500170001300600020003000700050003200800410003704000110007804100170008905000070010610000500011324500300016326400510019330000470024433600260029133700260031733800360034350000310037950801830041052017700059353400620236365300280242570000500245385600560250385600430255999900190260278557UtSlPG20260610134824.0mcr n260607r20261929utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d  aUtSlPG 7aen2iso639-1 4aAG1 aRipley, Robert L.q(Robert LeRoy),d1890-194910aBelieve it or not! [1929] 1aSalt Lake City, UT :bProject Gutenberg,c2026  a1 online resource :bmultiple file formats  atextbtxt2rdacontent  acomputerbc2rdamedia  aonline resourcebcr2rdacarrier  aRelease date is 2026-04-26  aSusan E., Harry Lamé and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)  a"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, and a galley slave’s century-long sentence). Together these early pages establish a globe-trotting, illustrated miscellany that alternates immersive reportage with punchy, provocative factoids. (This is an automatically generated summary.)  pOriginally published:cNew York: Simon and Schuster, 1929  aCuriosities and wonders1 aRipley, Robert L.q(Robert LeRoy),d1890-19494 uhttps://archive.org/details/bwb_W9-CLS-328/mode/2up40uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78557  c119275d119275