GOING SURFING

I just came across something interesting on the Online Books Page: a link to the archives of The Australian Women's Weekly.  I logged on to the earliest issue available (Saturday, June 10, 1933) and began to get get lost in another time and place.  Short articles, advice, women's sports, a romance story, the world's easiest crossword, the world's poorest jokes, and more...including Part 1 of a 3-part serial, "The Death Scream".  ("Had the Implacable Nemesis tracked the explorers of the Egyptian Tombs -- exacting from them, one by one, the fatal penalty?")  The author was one Cosmo Hamilton, touted as a member of the famous Gibbs family of writers.  (Well, it was probably important in 1933 Australia.)  Also, I noted a book review page that included a rave for The Deputy for Cain,  by mystery writer Roy Vickers, others for Clemence Dane's Bronte play Wild December and Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, as well as a cryptic filler claiming that H. G. Wells had written more books than any other living writer.  And the back page had a full-page, Totally-Safe-for-Work, advertisement for lady's underwear.

     Over the next week, I hope to get to "The Death Scream".  It's nice to know there's another place to go surfing to find some potentially good (probably bad) curiosities.