Truths stranger than fiction have captivated writers ever since there have been books. But for most twentieth-century Americans, the phrase "Believe it or not!" is indissolubly wedded to the name of Robert Le Roy Ripley, whose illustrated panel of wonders and curiosities was published in hundreds of newspapers across the United States. Although Ripley himself died in 1949, his famous brainchild continued to be produced by his successors throughout the twentieth century.

Robert L. Ripley

Ripley's career might have been very different but for several strokes of luck. In 1907, as a boy of 14 in Santa Rosa, California, he sold his first cartoon to the humor magazine Life. Later, while he was still a teenager, his talent was recognized by a neighbor, Carol Ennis, who steered him to his first newspaper job with the San Francisco Bulletin.

But...