'e-suicide'? Nothing new

Danny Finkelstein at The Times looks at copycat suicides, supposedly spawned by the web, and finds them part of a long tradition.

Too right. One word: Valentino, the silent screen heartthrob.

At the news of Valentino's death, two women attempted suicide in front of Polyclinic Hospital; in London a girl took poison before Rudy's inscribed photograph; an elevator boy of the Ritz in Paris was found dead on a bed covered with Valentino's photos.

While Valentino was lying in state at Campbell's Funeral Home, New York streets became the scene of a ghoulish carnival as a mob of over 100,000 fought for a last glimpse of the Great Lover

From Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon.