Nostr notes by The Public Domain Review

Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell — who died ...

2026-08-02T11:47:29Z

Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell — who died #onthisday in 1922 — goes to kiss his wife Mabel while she stands in one of his spectacular tetrahedral kites. See more of these wonderful creations (and the kiss realised) in our post here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/alexander-graham-bell-s-tetrahedral-kites-1903-9 #OTD

The earliest known depiction of a crop circle is in The ...

2026-06-23T19:47:21Z

The earliest known depiction of a crop circle is in The Mowing-Devil (1678), a 5-page pamphlet which recounts a labor dispute ending with an unwitting deal with the devil, and a field mown in way “that no Mortal Man was able to do the like”: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-mowing-devil #cropcircles

Guess the letter. From a 17th-century German book on the art of ...

2026-05-07T19:47:23Z

Guess the letter. From a 17th-century German book on the art of writing. A great range of different styles are represented seemingly increasing in complexity, and also illegibility, as the book goes on: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-proper-art-of-writing-1655

Happy #MayDay and #InternationalWorkersDay! This poster by Dutch ...

2026-05-01T11:47:38Z

Happy #MayDay and #InternationalWorkersDay! This poster by Dutch artist Jan Toorop was for the Hague's 1898 National Woman’s Labour Exhibition, which had the goal to improve women's wages and working conditions.

More posters from Toorop here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-salad-oil-style-of-jan-toorop

From 1903 to 1907 Augustus Jansson produced more than 30 striking ...

2026-04-29T19:46:33Z

From 1903 to 1907 Augustus Jansson produced more than 30 striking adverts for the Queen City Printing Ink Company, including the wonderful Ink Beasts Parade series, with its "Magenta Ponies" and "Orange-Yellow Ibexiaticus". More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/augustus-janssons-queen-city-ink-adverts-1903-1907

For #InternationalDanceDay — pages from a 1700 dance manual ...

2026-04-29T11:46:20Z

For #InternationalDanceDay — pages from a 1700 dance manual depicting a revolutionary dance notation system invented at the court of Louis XIV.

More pages from the manual here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dances-in-beauchamp-feuillet-notation

These aerial renderings, based off an 1860s land survey and ...

2026-04-23T19:47:16Z

These aerial renderings, based off an 1860s land survey and executed in watercolour for the Index of American Design (1936), depict a lost 19th-century Manhattan of grand country estates and vast private gardens: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/manhattans-last-arcadia

Total Eclipse of the Sun, 1882. Chromolithograph after a pastel ...

2026-04-22T16:45:56Z

Total Eclipse of the Sun, 1882. Chromolithograph after a pastel drawing by astronomer, artist, and amateur entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, who died on this day in 1895.

More on his life and stunning astronomical art here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-trouvelot-astronomical-drawings-1882

The first person to discover a link between increased levels of ...

2026-04-22T16:45:53Z

The first person to discover a link between increased levels of CO2 and #globalwarming was a New Yorker named Eunice Newton Foote. Read her 1856 paper, and how she went unacknowledged for more than a century, here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/first-paper-to-link-co2-and-global-warming-by-eunice-foote-1856 #earthday #climatechange

Illustrations from Albert Robida’s La vie électrique (1890). ...

2026-04-21T19:47:23Z

Illustrations from Albert Robida’s La vie électrique (1890). While the flying cars have not (yet) come to pass, Robida's imagining of life 60 years in the future includes many prescient visions, such as a proto Zoom, Netflix, hyperloop + smart doorbell: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/albert-robida-la-vie-electrique

Mark Twain died #onthisday in 1910. The best known of his books ...

2026-04-21T11:45:28Z

Mark Twain died #onthisday in 1910. The best known of his books is Huckleberry Finn, not so well known is Jap Herron which, according to a woman named Emily Grant Hutchings, he dictated from beyond the grave via a ouija board... https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/jap-herron-a-novel-written-from-the-ouija-board-1917 #OTD

The Parakeet — one of several polychrome woodblock copies made ...

2026-04-14T19:46:30Z

The Parakeet — one of several polychrome woodblock copies made in ca. 1900 from works by Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800), a Japanese painter of the mid-Edo period notable for his striking modern aesthetic. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/polychrome-woodblocks-of-ito-jakuchu-birds

#OnThisDay in 1561, as the sun rose over Nuremberg, the residents ...

2026-04-14T11:47:34Z

#OnThisDay in 1561, as the sun rose over Nuremberg, the residents described seeing an aerial battle take place in its glare — the erratic dance of orbs, crosses, cylinders and a crash-landing beyond the city. An early sighting of alien #UFO? https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/celestial-phenomenon-over-nuremberg-april-14th-1561 #OTD

“Leaving the Opera in the Year 2000”, a circa 1902 ...

2026-04-13T19:45:52Z

“Leaving the Opera in the Year 2000”, a circa 1902 illustration by French illustrator, etcher, lithographer, caricaturist, novelist, and all around futurologist, Albert Robida.

More on the print here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leaving-the-opera-in-the-year-2000?utm_content=buffer92bb8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Print from our shop here: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/leaving-the-opera-in-the-year-2000

“Pull up this small rod to enable the 'used' oil to run ...

2026-04-11T16:45:33Z

“Pull up this small rod to enable the 'used' oil to run out of the base-chamber”.

From the 1909 how-to-guide "The Woman and the Car: A Chatty Little Handbook for all Women Who Motor or Who Want to Motor", by Dorothy Levitt.

More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-woman-and-the-car

Total Eclipse of the Sun, 1882. Chromolithograph after a pastel ...

2026-04-08T14:17:13Z

Total Eclipse of the Sun, 1882. Chromolithograph after a pastel drawing by astronomer, artist, and amateur entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot.

Learn more about his life and see a collection of his stunning astronomical art here: https://buff.ly/2ENtY5g #eclipse #solareclipse

Dream Vision; A Nightmare (1525), by Albrecht Dürer, who died ...

2026-04-06T11:46:58Z

Dream Vision; A Nightmare (1525), by Albrecht Dürer, who died #onthisday in 1528. The watercolour and accompanying text describe an apocalyptic dream he had on the night of 7-8th June 1525.

More art depicting #dreams here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-dreams #OTD

This image details the aesthetic requirements for achieving the ...

2026-04-04T11:46:11Z

This image details the aesthetic requirements for achieving the “Ideal English Rabbit”, the benchmark of perfect (yet seemingly impossible) markings for a particular breed of rabbit first developed in the middle of the 19th century: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/in-search-of-the-impossible-the-perfect-english-rabbit

“Human Statue of Liberty” comprised of 18,000 officers and ...

2026-04-03T14:17:47Z

“Human Statue of Liberty” comprised of 18,000 officers and men at Camp Dodge, Des Moines, ca. 1917/18.

A “living photograph“ made by Arthur Mole and John Thomas — more here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-living-photographs-of-mole-and-thomas

In the early 16th century Albrecht Durer produced 6 woodcuts of ...

2026-04-03T11:47:09Z

In the early 16th century Albrecht Durer produced 6 woodcuts of knot patterns, likely inspired by Mamluk decorative metalwork. Each knot is a group of intricately entwined infinity loops made up of repeating patterns that follow circular paths: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/durer-knots/

Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, fell for one ...

2026-04-01T11:45:48Z

Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, fell for one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century when he became convinced that the "fairy photographs" taken by two girls from Yorkshire in the 1920s were real. Mary Losure explores: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/sir-arthur-and-the-fairies #AprilFools

Before the haystacks and water lilies, the teenage caricatures of ...

2026-03-26T12:48:04Z

Before the haystacks and water lilies, the teenage caricatures of Claude Monet: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/claude-monet-caricatures/

Punctuation Personified (1824) introduces, with Mr. Stops as our ...

2026-03-25T20:47:07Z

Punctuation Personified (1824) introduces, with Mr. Stops as our guide, a cast of literal “characters”, including Counsellor Comma, Ensign Semicolon, and a surprisingly mournful Exclamation Point... https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/punctuation-personified

This frontispiece etching, printed by Jan Luyken for Cornelis van ...

2026-03-24T20:48:10Z

This frontispiece etching, printed by Jan Luyken for Cornelis van Dyk’s Osteologia (1680), seems to speak to the consequences of Adam’s naming as imagined by Hegel: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/luyken-osteologia

Bernard Sleigh’s Anciente Mappe of Fairyland, originally ...

2026-03-23T20:47:26Z

Bernard Sleigh’s Anciente Mappe of Fairyland, originally published in 1917, is a stunning six-foot-long map that depicts the worlds of various myths, fairytales, and folklore on one single landscape: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/an-anciente-mappe-of-fairyland/

X-Ray images of women wearing corsets from French doctor Ludovic ...

2026-03-23T15:17:13Z

X-Ray images of women wearing corsets from French doctor Ludovic O'Followell's Le Corset (1908). Although keen to show the damaging impact of corsets, he did not actually want the corset to be abolished, but simply redesigned: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-corset-x-rays-of-dr-ludovic-o-followell-1908

#OnThisDay in 1849, an enslaved man named Henry Brown made his ...

2026-03-23T12:47:09Z

#OnThisDay in 1849, an enslaved man named Henry Brown made his bid for freedom, by shipping himself in a box to the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in downtown Philadelphia. Read his story here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-narrative-of-henry-box-brown-1849

Michalina Janoszanka, Wiosna (Spring), ca. 1920s. One of several ...

2026-03-22T20:48:20Z

Michalina Janoszanka, Wiosna (Spring), ca. 1920s. One of several paintings made directly on glass by the Polish artist. More of her work in our post: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/michalina-janoszanka/

And buy a print of this image in our online shop: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/spring/

Happy #WorldWaterDay! Fetch yourself a big glass of the good ...

2026-03-22T12:48:02Z

Happy #WorldWaterDay! Fetch yourself a big glass of the good stuff and take a look at the watery wonder which is Hamonshu (1903), a Japanese book of wave and ripple designs: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/hamonshu-a-japanese-book-of-wave-and-ripple-designs-1903

Yokohama-e (literally “Yokohama pictures”) are a type of ...

2026-03-21T20:46:51Z

Yokohama-e (literally “Yokohama pictures”) are a type of Japanese woodblock print depicting the foreigners who flooded through Yokohama during the 1860s and 70s, in particular North Americans: https://buff.ly/2eSwcac

Happy #WorldPoetryDay! Explore our essays on poetry themes, ...

2026-03-21T12:48:11Z

Happy #WorldPoetryDay! Explore our essays on poetry themes, including pieces on John Milton, Walt Whitman, G.M. Hopkins, A.C. Swinburne, Lewis Carroll, and Phillis Wheatley: https://publicdomainreview.org/essays/category/poetry

Isaac Newton died #onthisday in 1726. Not just a scientist, he ...

2026-03-20T15:15:55Z

Isaac Newton died #onthisday in 1726. Not just a scientist, he also wrote on apocalyptic prophecy and believed the world could "end" in 2060 AD. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/sir-isaac-newton-s-daniel-and-the-apocalypse-1733?utm_content=bufferb98da&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer #OTD #apocalypse

NEW ESSAY — “Fear and Fragility: The Glass Delusion and Its ...

2026-03-19T15:52:37Z

NEW ESSAY — “Fear and Fragility: The Glass Delusion and Its History” — In early modern Europe, patients started appearing in medical records with a particular ailment: a firm belief that they were made of glass. Tamara Sanderson explores: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/fear-and-fragility-the-glass-delusion-and-its-history/

A few of the many inventions (including proto-e-reader) in ...

2026-03-10T15:17:41Z

A few of the many inventions (including proto-e-reader) in Agostino Ramelli’s 1588 illustrated masterpiece Le diverse et artificiose machine (Diverse and artificial machines). More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/agostino-ramelli-theatre-of-machines

Amida on the Lotus, from Athanasius Kircher's China ...

2026-03-09T20:45:38Z

Amida on the Lotus, from Athanasius Kircher's China Illustrata, 1665.

Available as a print here: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/plate-from-china-illustrata/

Celebrate #WorldBookDay with a look at some of the most beautiful ...

2026-03-05T17:45:37Z

Celebrate #WorldBookDay with a look at some of the most beautiful and unusual examples from the first 100 years of the “modern” book cover, since the rise of publishers' bindings circa 1820: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-book-covers-1820-1914

A few of the 53 "potted landscapes" made for each of the ...

2026-03-04T17:46:28Z

A few of the 53 "potted landscapes" made for each of the stations of the Tōkaidō road, the most important route in Edo-period Japan. After they were made the artist had a relatively obscure ukiyo-e artist named Utagawa Yoshishige to illustrate them: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/53-stations-of-the-tokaido-as-potted-landscapes-1848

Seed sowing time — entry for #March in the Labors of the Months ...

2026-03-01T15:15:30Z

Seed sowing time — entry for #March in the Labors of the Months section of the Très Riches Heures, probably the most important illuminated manuscript of the 15th century: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/labors-of-the-months-from-the-tres-riches-heures

Beautiful diagrams from a circa 17th-century copy of Muslim ...

2026-02-28T17:46:23Z

Beautiful diagrams from a circa 17th-century copy of Muslim polymath Ismail al-Jazarī’s *Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices*, originally published in 1206: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/arabic-machine-manuscript

To create convincing facsimiles of drawings in the early modern ...

2026-02-27T15:17:17Z

To create convincing facsimiles of drawings in the early modern era required a challenging technical feat: translating drawings into print. Our latest post explores the 18th-century aquatints of Maria Catharina Prestel: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/maria-catharina-prestel/

Happy #InternationalPolarBearDay! Read Michael Engelhard's ...

2026-02-27T12:45:48Z

Happy #InternationalPolarBearDay! Read Michael Engelhard's essay "Darwin's Polar Bear" looking at the often overlooked role they played in the development of evolutionary theory: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/darwin-s-polar-bear #polarbears

(Pictured: a circa 1808 etching by S. C. Miger.)

Northern Lights in Zenith, by Harald Moltke, 1900. One of the ...

2026-02-26T20:46:48Z

Northern Lights in Zenith, by Harald Moltke, 1900.

One of the many images of Aurora Borealis collected in our post “Firelight Flickering on the Ceiling of the World”, looking at how this otherworldly phenomenon has been depicted over the centuries: https://buff.ly/38dxgft

One of the first English recipes for “currey the Indian way”, ...

2026-02-26T17:48:18Z

One of the first English recipes for “currey the Indian way”, to be served with rice “pellow”, from the 1751 edition of Hannah Glasse's Art of Cookery. More in our latest books post: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-cookery/

One of the many wonderful illustrations featured in Omega: The ...

2026-02-26T12:47:12Z

One of the many wonderful illustrations featured in Omega: The Last Days of the Earth (1894), a #sciencefiction novel by 19th-century French astronomer and writer Camille Flammarion, who was born #onthisday in1842. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/omega-the-last-days-of-the-world-1894 #OTD #scifi

T. S. Eliot’s admiration of P. G. Wodehouse was said to be ...

2026-02-25T12:47:52Z

T. S. Eliot’s admiration of P. G. Wodehouse was said to be “just this side of idolatry”, Douglas Adams named him a “great genius” who “writes pure word music”. Read Wodehouse's Leave it to Psmith (1923) here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/leave-it-to-psmith-1923/

“The great south sea caterpillar, transform’d into a Bath ...

2026-02-24T12:46:35Z

“The great south sea caterpillar, transform’d into a Bath butterfly” (1795), James Gillray's caricature of English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences Joseph Banks, born #onthisday in 1743. More on the iconography of Banks here https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/joseph-banks-portraits-of-a-placid-elephant #otd

Poseidon taking chocolate from Mexico to Europe, a detail from ...

2026-02-22T17:47:56Z

Poseidon taking chocolate from Mexico to Europe, a detail from the frontispiece to Chocolata Inda by Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, 1644.

Featured in our essay "When Chocolate was Medicine" by Christine Jones: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/when-chocolate-was-medicine-colmenero-wadsworth-and-dufour https://twitter.com/PublicDomainRev/status/1378812382181535752/photo/1

#SundayReads: Jennifer Manoukian recovers the cunning exploits of ...

2026-02-22T15:15:59Z

#SundayReads: Jennifer Manoukian recovers the cunning exploits of a forgotten 19th-century conman, whose initially honorable intentions quickly escalated into all-out fraud: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/a-princely-ploy

In his Sea Monsters Unmasked and Sea Fables Explained, both ...

2026-02-21T12:48:38Z

In his Sea Monsters Unmasked and Sea Fables Explained, both published in 1883, Henry Lee narrates accounts of sea beasts to disprove them, but the pamphlets also unintentionally serve as a wonderful compendia of maritime folklore on aquatic cryptids: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/sea-monsters-sea-fables

Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass died #onthisday in 1895, ...

2026-02-20T12:46:28Z

Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass died #onthisday in 1895, aged 77. Read his only published work of fiction "The Heroic Slave", first featured in Autographs for Freedom, an anthology of anti-slavery literature published in 1853: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/autographs-for-freedom-1853?utm_content=buffer1de80&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer #otd

In Pennsylvania and beyond (ca. 1790–1830) official documents ...

2026-02-19T20:46:32Z

In Pennsylvania and beyond (ca. 1790–1830) official documents such as baptismal records, land deeds, and birth registries were lettered in German fraktur script, and decorated with the hearts, vines, and tulips that came to characterise fraktur folk art: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/fraktur-folk-art

Chart of the Hand.⠀ ⠀ One of the many fantastic illustrations ...

2026-01-27T20:46:11Z

Chart of the Hand.⠀
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One of the many fantastic illustrations to be found in Dr Alesha Sivartha's enigmatic 1898 work titled The Book of Life: The Spiritual and Physical Constitution of Man.

More here: https://buff.ly/3a5TVea
Prints to buy here: https://buff.ly/2QtNo5q

Happy un-un-birthday Lewis Carroll, born #onthisday in 1832. ...

2026-01-27T15:17:42Z

Happy un-un-birthday Lewis Carroll, born #onthisday in 1832. Pictured here: the frontispiece to The Rectory Umbrella, a magazine produced by Carroll and his 10 siblings, when he was around 17 years old. More in Jenny Woolf's essay here: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-mystery-of-lewis-carroll #otd

Born #onthisday in 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Read an account ...

2026-01-27T12:45:53Z

Born #onthisday in 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Read an account of him at just 8 years old. As well as dazzling the narrator with his musical genius Mozart “would also sometimes run about the room with a stick between his legs by way of horse” — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/account-of-a-very-remarkable-young-musician-1769 #OTD

Beautiful illustrations of iron interacting with rocks, from the ...

2026-01-24T17:46:26Z

Beautiful illustrations of iron interacting with rocks, from the publication of a paper, "On the Disposition of Iron in Variegated Strata", delivered by the botanist and geologist George Maw to the Geological Society on April 22nd 1868: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/on-the-disposition-of-iron-in-variegated-strata-1868?utm_content=buffer0b175&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

One of a great series of drawings depicting balloonfish and ...

2026-01-23T17:46:23Z

One of a great series of drawings depicting balloonfish and pufferfish made during the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/drawings-of-tetradons-and-diodons-ca-1838-42?utm_content=buffera80a0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer #fishfriday

Earliest known photograph of a snowman, ca. 1854, taken by Mary ...

2026-01-22T17:45:59Z

Earliest known photograph of a snowman, ca. 1854, taken by Mary Dillwyn (most likely in Wales).

The first image in our post collecting photographs of snowmen through history (1854–1950) — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/photographs-of-snowmen/

Lepus leaping. From the Aratea, a 9th-century manuscript on ...

2026-01-21T20:45:33Z

Lepus leaping.

From the Aratea, a 9th-century manuscript on astronomy featuring constellations comprised of words. More here: https://buff.ly/34uIsEa

France in 2000, as envisaged in 1899. Some tech is wonderfully ...

2026-01-20T20:46:47Z

France in 2000, as envisaged in 1899. Some tech is wonderfully prescient: we've versions of Zoom, a vacuum cleaner, drone deliveries. Other visions less so, particularly those anticipating a life beneath the waves, of underwater croquet + whale buses... https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vision-of-the-year-2000/

Pages from Master of Claude de France’s Book of Flower Studies ...

2026-01-19T15:18:57Z

Pages from Master of Claude de France’s Book of Flower Studies (ca. 1510–1515), including some delightful play with scale. From the @metmuseum.

More in our post: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/book-of-flower-studies/

Embroidered front and back covers of a 1791 edition of Robinson ...

2026-01-18T12:47:29Z

Embroidered front and back covers of a 1791 edition of Robinson Crusoe — featured in our essay "Pens and Needles", on the Victorian revival of embroidered book covers: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/pens-and-needles-reviving-book-embroidery-in-victorian-england

Died #onthisday in 1834, Giovanni Aldini, the Italian ...

2026-01-17T15:18:08Z

Died #onthisday in 1834, Giovanni Aldini, the Italian "galvanist" whose experiments in animating the muscles of the dead with electricity inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Read more in our essay by Sharon Ruston: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-science-of-life-and-death-in-mary-shelleys-frankenstein

Chromolithographic plates from Owen Jones’ Examples of Chinese ...

2026-01-15T20:48:31Z

Chromolithographic plates from Owen Jones’ Examples of Chinese Ornament (1867) which reproduces ornamentation from painted vases, incense burners, lacquer boxes, and many more objects in the @V_and_A. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/examples-of-chinese-ornament-1867/

A collaboration with time: beautifully decayed and damaged ...

2026-01-15T15:18:15Z

A collaboration with time: beautifully decayed and damaged daguerreotypes from the studio of one of the most celebrated 19th-century photographers Mathew Brady, who died #onthisday in 1896: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/decayed-daguerreotypes

A look at some of the most beautiful and unusual examples from ...

2026-01-14T20:46:01Z

A look at some of the most beautiful and unusual examples from the first 100 years of the "modern" book cover, since the rise of publishers' bindings circa 1820: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-book-covers-1820-1914

Jenny Woolf explores the joys and struggles of Lewis Carroll, who ...

2026-01-14T12:46:27Z

Jenny Woolf explores the joys and struggles of Lewis Carroll, who died #onthisday in 1898 — a brilliant, secretive, and complex man, and creator of one of the world's best-loved stories: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-mystery-of-lewis-carroll #OTD

Susan Schulten explores the pioneering work of Emma Willard ...

2026-01-13T17:47:55Z

Susan Schulten explores the pioneering work of Emma Willard (1787–1870), a leading feminist educator whose innovative maps of time laid the groundwork for the charts and infographics of today: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/emma-willard-maps-of-time

Paschal Beverly Randolph was a 19th-century occult thinker and ...

2026-01-12T17:46:52Z

Paschal Beverly Randolph was a 19th-century occult thinker and activist who believed that his multiracial identity afforded him “peculiar mental power and marvelous versatility”. More in @LaraLangerCohen's essay — https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-emancipatory-visions-of-a-sex-magician

Chemistry of Combustion and Illumination, a diagram from Edward ...

2026-01-11T20:46:35Z

Chemistry of Combustion and Illumination, a diagram from Edward Livingston Youmans' Chemical Atlas; or, The Chemistry of Familiar Objects (1856). ⠀
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Order as a print here: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/chemistry-of-combustion-and-illumination

Wonderful sketch of “teeth painlessly extracted by steam ...

2026-01-10T17:48:18Z

Wonderful sketch of “teeth painlessly extracted by steam power” adorning an envelope addressed to a certain Dr J. Chapman of Totton, Southampton, and dated 1894. Was it sent in the mail like this? https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/steam-powered-tooth-extraction-on-an-envelope-1894?utm_content=bufferf9c3c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Highlights from @BPLBoston's collection of ...

2026-01-09T17:47:48Z

Highlights from @BPLBoston's collection of "fore-edge" paintings, illustrations adorning the open edges of books, only revealed when the stack of pages are fanned — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/fore-edge-book-paintings-from-the-boston-public-library

(Pictured here: François-André Danican Philidor's Analysis of the Game of Chess, 1749.)

Optimistic opening to the first issue of The Pioneer (1912), ...

2026-01-08T20:46:47Z

Optimistic opening to the first issue of The Pioneer (1912), journal for the "Simplified Speling Soesiety”. More here: https://buff.ly/3GeURMA

As many embark boldly (and perhaps temporarily) on brand new gym ...

2026-01-05T15:17:23Z

As many embark boldly (and perhaps temporarily) on brand new gym memberships, here's a look at where it all started: the workout machines of the 19th century: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/zander-gym

An automaton fuelled by tomes of newly available knowledge sweeps ...

2026-01-03T20:47:00Z

An automaton fuelled by tomes of newly available knowledge sweeps away the old society. No, not a self-portrait by ChatGPT in the style of a Georgian satirical print, but one of several “March of Intellect” cartoons published ca. 1828: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/march-of-the-intellect

In at number 1 in our top 10 of this year’s most read pieces ...

2025-12-31T15:17:30Z

In at number 1 in our top 10 of this year’s most read pieces — Kathryn Hughes’ essay “The Cat’s Meat Man: Feeding Felines in Victorian London”: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-cats-meat-man/

Full top 10 here: https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/12/top-10-most-read-pieces-from-2025/

Happy New Year's Eve! Europe has been marking the change of ...

2025-12-31T12:46:15Z

Happy New Year's Eve! Europe has been marking the change of year with pyrotechnics since at least the 16th century. @simon_werrett looks at how artists have represented fireworks displays through the centuries: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/picturing-pyrotechnics #Fireworks #NewYearsEve

Top 10 of this year's most read pieces — no.7: our post on ...

2025-12-29T15:15:59Z

Top 10 of this year's most read pieces — no.7: our post on the playful, radical photos by the couple Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg — subversive visions of gender and sexuality in early 1900s Norway: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/berg-and-hoeg/

(Full Top 10 here: https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/12/top-10-most-read-pieces-from-2025/)

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Dashiell Hammett's The ...

2025-12-29T00:02:03Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.

More info behind window 28 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

Top 10 of this year's most read pieces — no.9: our post on ...

2025-12-28T20:48:09Z

Top 10 of this year's most read pieces — no.9: our post on a 1678 pamphlet, The Mowing-Devil, which includes the earliest known depiction of a crop circle: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-mowing-devil/

(Full Top 10 here: https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/12/top-10-most-read-pieces-from-2025)

J. M. Barrie's My Lady Nicotine (1896) — A genre-defying ...

2025-12-27T20:46:00Z

J. M. Barrie's My Lady Nicotine (1896) — A genre-defying work by the creator of Peter Pan about the pleasures of smoking: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/my-lady-nicotine

Invent Monopoly, do not collect $200... Lizzie Maggie's ...

2025-12-27T17:45:58Z

Invent Monopoly, do not collect $200...

Lizzie Maggie's "Landlord's Game" and how an anti-capitalist board game invented by a woman became an uber-capitalist game that profited a man: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-landlords-game/

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1880) — 1st English ...

2025-12-27T12:46:45Z

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1880) — 1st English translation of Pu Songling's collection of classical Chinese stories, including magical pear trees, thimble-sized babies, ghostly cities, and mean spirited daughters-in-law being turned into pigs: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/strange-stories-from-a-chinese-studio-1880

A whale and three fish sitting down to a formal dinner of Russian ...

2025-12-26T20:48:20Z

A whale and three fish sitting down to a formal dinner of Russian sailors, in a propaganda cartoon created by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), during the Russo-Japanese war (1904-5). View more from this superb series of prints here: https://buff.ly/2w0DK1S

#OnThisDay in 1791 “father of the computer” Charles Babbage ...

2025-12-26T12:46:47Z

#OnThisDay in 1791 “father of the computer” Charles Babbage was born. On his death 80 yrs later, as he himself requested, his brain was donated to science. See pictures of the "wetware" behind the "hardware" and read a detailed description here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-description-of-the-brain-of-mr-charles-babbage-1909 #OTD

Santa snoozing... From a 1908 issue of “The Suburbanite: A ...

2025-12-25T17:46:35Z

Santa snoozing...

From a 1908 issue of “The Suburbanite: A Monthly Magazine for Those Who Are and Those Who Ought to Be Interested in Suburban Homes”. https://twitter.com/PublicDomainRev/status/1474693415271030785/photo/1

A Christmas Sermon by Robert Louis Stevenson — a meditation on ...

2025-12-24T15:17:31Z

A Christmas Sermon by Robert Louis Stevenson — a meditation on the questions of death, morality + the main task in life: “To be honest, to be kind — to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence” https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-christmas-sermon-by-robert-louis-stevenson-1900

Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal, a Christmas tale about 2 ...

2025-12-24T12:46:52Z

Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal, a Christmas tale about 2 children who get lost in the blinding snow, loved by WG Sebald, Hannah Arendt, Thomas Mann + WH Auden (who called it a "beautiful parable about the relation of people to places, of man to nature") https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/rock-crystal-adalbert-stifter

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Stella Benson's The ...

2025-12-24T00:02:38Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Stella Benson's The Far-Away Bride.

More info behind window 23 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

#OnThisDay in 1931, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley died from ...

2025-12-23T12:45:54Z

#OnThisDay in 1931, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley died from pneumonia contracted after walking home in a snowstorm. In 1885, the self-educated farmer from Vermont, using a homemade camera, became the first person to photograph a snow crystal: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-snowflake-man-of-vermont #otd

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Sigmund Freud's ...

2025-12-23T00:02:48Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents.

More info behind window 22 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

Cuckoo and Pine, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1840. Available to buy as ...

2025-12-21T20:47:01Z

Cuckoo and Pine, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1840.

Available to buy as a print in our online shop here: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/cuckoo-and-pine/

Reading for this winter solstice night: the remarkable diary of ...

2025-12-21T17:45:54Z

Reading for this winter solstice night: the remarkable diary of Frederick A. Cook, one of the first people to spend winter on Antarctica, including a night which lasted more than two months: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/through-the-first-antarctic-night-1900 #Solstice #WinterSolstice #winter #LongestNight #shortestday

Happy first day of winter to all north of the equator! In need of ...

2025-12-21T12:47:49Z

Happy first day of winter to all north of the equator! In need of some "backward change of edge" this season? Here's Swedish figure skating champion Bror Myer turning some circles on the ice circa 1921... https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/skating-with-bror-myer-1921/ #winter #WinterSolstice

Published by the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company in ...

2025-12-20T17:47:05Z

Published by the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company in 1917, this little book's pages are entirely blank. More on it here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/why-women-should-not-vote

Born #onthisday in 1838, theologian and schoolmaster Edwin Abbott ...

2025-12-20T12:46:42Z

Born #onthisday in 1838, theologian and schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott, who in 1884 published the remarkable Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, perhaps the first ever example of “mathematical fiction”. More on the book here: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/aspiring-to-a-higher-plane #OTD

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Agatha Christie's The ...

2025-12-20T00:01:38Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage.

More info behind window 19 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

An 18th-century treatise by coffee enthusiast Benjamin Moseley, ...

2025-12-19T17:46:11Z

An 18th-century treatise by coffee enthusiast Benjamin Moseley, arguing for the drink's multitude of benefits when it was still relatively new to Europe: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/moseley-coffee

At the end of the 17th century a mysterious kayak-paddling ...

2025-12-19T12:46:43Z

At the end of the 17th century a mysterious kayak-paddling “Finnman” was first seen in Orkney waters. @JonWestaway explores what the subsequent explanations tell us about early modern science's fascination with the "out of place": https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-orkney-finnmen-legends

Geographical Fun (1868), a series of fantastic anthropomorphic ...

2025-12-17T20:48:13Z

Geographical Fun (1868), a series of fantastic anthropomorphic maps of European countries, drawn by an unnamed 15-year-old girl who had the idea for the novel maps "when seeking to amuse a brother confined to his bed by illness": https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/geographical-fun-being-humourous-outlines-of-various-countries-1868?utm_content=bufferdbc71&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

This is not a painting. It is made entirely of wood, its surface ...

2025-12-16T20:47:42Z

This is not a painting. It is made entirely of wood, its surface flat. A detail from the 15th-century "Studiolo Gubbio", one of the finest examples of intarsia, the masterful art of fitting together pieces of wood to make images: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/exquisite-rot-spalted-wood-and-the-lost-art-of-intarsia