The Secret Battleplane by Percy F Westerman
It’s “A Westerman”, there was actually two Westerman’s (Westermen?) who I think were father and son. I’ve read one other story by them which was wicked, so I’m looking forward to starting this one.
The cover, though… A fish-shaped aeroplane with flapping wings? It’s derived from the plate inside:
Flapping wings I tells yer! And isn’t that rear gun rather badly positioned?
Of course, this was published in the 1890’s or early 1900’s right? Before aeroplanes were invented? Surely we can forgive them a slip like that?
Well, no, because the story was actually first published in 1916! And this edition is from 1932. The 1932 edition apparently had “minor alterations”, but apparently the elephant in the room was overlooked. What where these minor alterations, why it appears to have been a “remember this book is a product of it’s time and contains language you may find offensive” disclaimer. In 1932!
It’s political correctness gone mad!
Also today I took delivery of 11 issues of the 1970’s girl’s comic Jinty.
because that’s how I roll.
Some of the stories have great writing, featuring a mysterious family moving next door to a girl and keeping their daughter prisoner to experiment on her, for instance. Also a down-to-earth skater girl from Australia moving in with her snooty English cousin. “Daddy’s got a new S-registration car! How wonderful!” XD
It’s just a shame that such stories were segregated into “girls” and “boys” comics back then. (Also the girl’s comics seem to have got the worst of the artists, there’s a general “can’t be arsed” air running through most of the stories). Of course in these enlightened times such things have moved on from that Victorian mentality… oh wait, actually it’s not a Victorian mentality because in the 1890’s papers such as Halfpenny Marvel and Union Jack were intended to be read by both sexes (though to be fair the “girlyness” often went no further than a love interest who is seen at the start of the story, gets totally ignored and then pops up at the end to marry the hero). Also the heroines of girl’s story papers of the 20’s and 30’s could kick the asses of the characters of the 60’s and 70’s… whilst hanging off the running board of a speeding car and shooting a Tommy gun.
Not that you’ll hear about any of that in revisionist “the further back you go the worse it was” articles written about these sorts of papers in The Guardian by somebody who has never actually read one.