Online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas. Featuring 300+ essays — ✍️ submissions welcome. We also have a mighty fine prints shop. https://publicdomainreview.org
The American Librarian C.A. Cutter looks forward from 1883 to “the library of the future” in 1983, where the librarians wear slippers and a “little car” delivers books to your desk. Dreams might still come true... publicdomainreview.org/collection/t...
Dice Man — it's just how he rolls... More radical fashion from the 16th-century Schembart Carnival here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/radical-fashion-from-the-schembart-carnival-1590
The Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, and heartthrob Franz Liszt died #onthisday in 1886. Leon Botstein explores what we can still learn from the life and music of "possibly the greatest pianist that has ever lived” — publicdomainreview.org/essay/w... #OTD
Pages from Walter Crane's beautifully illustrated version of Aesop's fables, shortened and put into limericks for the younger reader and first published in 1887. See the full book here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-baby-s-own-aesop-1908
"The Duck quaketh... The Wolf howleth" — from what many consider to be the first picture book for children, Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658). More in our essay here: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/in-the-image-of-god-john-comenius-and-the-first-children-s-picture-book
"Friendship books" were the #Facebook of the 17th and 18th centuries (without the ads and data mining). Here's a fine example of one begun in 1795 by the aunt of the poet Felicia Dorothea Browne: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-friendship-book-of-anne-wagner-1795-1834 #FriendshipDay
Gregorio Astengo explores the innovations employed in early issues of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions, the world's first scientific journal — new forms of image making which pushed the boundaries of 17th-century book printing: publicdomainreview.org/essay/m...
NEW ESSAY — Centuries before Neo instantly mastered Kung Fu in The Matrix, medieval scholars found a shortcut to years of difficult study: a magical manuscript that promised to fast-track advanced learning. Anne Lawrence-Mathers investigates the Ars notoria: publicdomainreview.org/essay/ars-no...
Photographs of sea stars, collected during the Siboga Expedition around Indonesia, 1899–1900. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/photographs-of-sea-stars-1917
For #InternationalTigerDay... "Tigerlillia Terribilis" — from Edward Lear’s Nonsense Botany (1871–77). More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/edward-lears-nonsense-botany-1871-77 #InternationalTigerDay2022
Images from a 1608 edition of Livre de Pourtraiture by Jehan Cousin the Younger (ca. 1522–95), son of the painter and sculptor Jehan Cousin the Elder (ca. 1490-ca. 1560): https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/jehan-cousin-s-livre-de-pourtraiture-1608/
Covers from Amauta, a Peruvian avant-garde literary magazine (1926–30): https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/amauta-covers/
Born #onthisday in 1844, English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins. Celebrate with a read of our essay "The Krakatoa Sunsets" by Richard Hamblyn which explores a little-known series of letters that the poet sent in to the journal Nature: publicdomainreview.org/essay/t... #OTD
Happy birthday Beatrix Potter, born #onthisday in 1866. Here she is as teenager with her pet mouse Xarifa. More in our essay on her life by the late Frank Delaney: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-tale-of-beatrix-potter #otd
Sowing Man, a 1927 engraving by Dutch artist Bernard Essers. One of 900+ prints available to buy from our online shop: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/sowing-man/
Archie G. Norcross’ 360-degree circular maps (1918–22) to be used in mountaintop fire tower stations to help locate forest fires in the surrounding landscape: publicdomainreview.org/collection/m...
Photograph of a Sinhalese woman by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1875. More on the Victorian photographer's time in Sri Lanka in our essay by Eugenia Herbert: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/julia-margaret-cameron-in-ceylon-idylls-of-freshwater-vs-idylls-of-rathoongodde
Final illustration for A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future (1894) by the wealthy businessman John Jacob Astor IV, in which he offers an imagining of life in the year 2000. In 1912, Astor would die in the sinking of the Titanic. More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/a...
Barnard’s Universal Criminal Cipher Code (1895) was a book of codes to help disguise internal police telegrams in what amounted to some kind of 19th-century version of the encrypted email: http://buff.ly/2ut1vvs
An Austrian painter's beautiful presentation, from 1878, of various atmospheric conditions: including will-o'-the-wisp, a moonbow, and the Northern Lights: publicdomainreview.org/collection/p... 🌪 🌈 ☀️ 🌤 ⛅️ 🌥 ☁️ 🌦 🌧 ⛈ 🌩 ❄️ ☃️ 🌬 💨 💧