My PhD thesis will be written around the database To Be Continued. I’m very grateful to not only be using the information in the database, but also performing data entry enabling further stories to be added to the database. This is incredibly exciting as I get to see the fiction discovered in Trove, and enter those details for easier retrieval by the public. The To Be Continued database is a hugely important resource that enable scholars from around the world to research the real history of Australian fiction. It’s like today, where we have books and ebooks – 120 years ago we had books and newspapers. A secondary path for obtaining fiction is no less important over a century later.
However, unfortunately, the To Be Continued database, at the time of writing, does not contain newspaper fiction from the 1930s. My thesis will explore 1901-1939 so, of course, I want to know what’s out there in newspapers beyond what the To Be Continued database has on file. Thankfully, the Trove database, far from just being scans of pages, has delineated section already, so scans of fiction that I’m looking for will show up separately. Hence, the discovery of Space Raiders. While I expect the Space Raiders story to be added to the TBC database by July, my impatience means I had to jump ahead and talk about it.
I found a story in the 1930s from a couple of newspapers called Space Raiders. It is a serial story spread across several weeks, and featuring in The Labor Daily (1935), and The Morning Bulletin (1936). It features an inventor creating a hoverer that runs on radium, who uses it to fight the invasion of an interstellar menace.
Sounds great!
I haven’t read all the chapters yet, still sourcing them, but the science seems sound (apart from the uses of radium) and the invading force seems like a bunch of right old blighters and scoundrels! No doubt I will be sucking on my pipe and enjoying a scone and a cucumber sandwich, and perhaps a spot of brandy, while reading them.
I hope to reveal more information about this story, soon. In the meantime, I thought I’d talk about the plethora of pseudonyms or even unattributed-isms that are in the database. Space Raiders, for instance, was actually written by Harry Leigh Pink. Other authors for other stories in the database are not even listed, going by the nomenclature ‘unknown’. It is surprising, from my 21st century viewpoint, that anyone could write something without getting credit for it. Certainly, I have offered to ghost write, on occasion, if the money is good. But, generally, I want my name on my work so that I can earn whatever lifetime compensation is available, even if it is only a few cents.
In the TBC database there are a large number of authors that have listed themselves with multiple fake names, or even simply not had their names listed anywhere. This means that, adding their story usually results in two to five names being attributed to it. It seems that, from the 19th to early 20th century, most writers were embarrassed to identify as such. This is a shame as there are fantastic writers from that time period that many will not be aware of purely due to not identifying themselves.
It’s great that Space Raiders is found in Trove. I look forward to when it exists in the TBC database.
