The Public Domain Review

150 years ago today, on November 19th 1863, President Lincoln delivered his famous speech at the dedication of the Gettysburg Civil War Cemetery, a cemetery set up to house and honour the dead from one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War which had taken place four months earlier (the sad aftermath of which is pictured above in a photograph by Timothy H. O’Sullivan). Abraham Lincoln’s carefully crafted address was in fact meant to be secondary to other presentations that day, following on as it did from a two hour speech by the orator Edward Everett. Although Lincoln’s was only just over two minutes long in it’s delivery, it came to be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history. In it’s short span, Lincoln reiterated the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and proclaimed the Civil War as a struggle for the preservation of the Union sundered by the secession crisis, with “a new birth of freedom,” that would bring true equality to all of its citizens. Lincoln also managed to redefine the Civil War as a struggle not just for the Union, but also for the principle of human equality. […]

As a celebration of the centennial of the publication of Du côté de chez Swann (Swann's Way), the first volume of Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, we have put together a few highlights of the many mentions of artworks to be found in the first volume, Swann's Way, in which the narrator recounts his experiences growing up, participating in society, falling in love, and learning about art.

Scott Moncrieff's English translation of Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu is widely hailed as a masterpiece in its own right. His rendering of the title as Remembrance of Things Past is not, however, considered a high point. William C. Carter explores the two men's correspondence on this somewhat sticky issue and how the Shakespearean title missed the mark regarding Proust's theory of memory.

A charming set of 19th Century American trade cards, advertising - via the medium of a frog and gnome-like character - collars and cuffs made of a waterproof linen (celluloid).

Mike Kelly, curator at the Archives and Special Collections of Amherst College, explores highlights from their Emily Dickinson collection, a huge variety of manuscript forms - from concert programmes to chocolate wrappers - which give us a fascinating insight into how the poet worked.

Phenomena of Materialisation, a contribution to the investigation of mediumistic teleplastics, by Baron von Schrenck Notzing, translated by E. E. Fournier d’Albe; 1923; K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, E. P. Dutton in London, New York. English translation of Phenomena of Materialisation, a book by German physician and psychic researcher Baron von Schrenck-Notzing which focuses on a series of séances witnessed between the years 1909 and 1913 involving the French medium Eva Carrière, or Eva C. Born Marthe Béraud, Carrière changed her name in 1909 to begin her career afresh after a series of seances she held in 1905 were exposed as a fraud. Her psychic performances as Eva C gained the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mystery series, who believed she was genuine, and also Harry Houdini, who was not so convinced. Another researcher who became interested in her case was Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. A series of tests he devised between the years 1909 and 1913 convinced him that Eva C was the real deal and in 1913 he published his Phenomena of Materialisation detailing the sessions and the reasons for his belief. It has been noted that these sessions with Schrenck-Notzing verged on the […]

This remarkable series of photographs are from a book entitled Phenomena of Materialisation by German physician and psychic researcher Baron von Schrenck-Notzing. The book focuses on a series of séances that Schrenck-Notzing witnessed between the years 1909 and 1913 involving the French medium Eva Carrière, or Eva C. Born Marthe Béraud, Carrière changed her name in 1909 to begin her career afresh after a series of seances she held in 1905 were exposed as a fraud. Her psychic performances as Eva C gained the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mystery series, who believed she was genuine, and also Harry Houdini, who was not so convinced. Another researcher who became interested in her case was Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. A series of tests he devised between the years 1909 and 1913 convinced him that Eva C was the real deal and in 1913 he published his Phenomena of Materialisation detailing the sessions and the reasons for his belief. It has been noted that these sessions with Schrenck-Notzing verged on the pornographic. Carrière’s assistant (and reported lover) Juliette Bisson would, during the course of the séance sittings with Schrenck-Notzing, introduce her finger into Carrière’s vagina to ensure […]

On the centenary of his death, Michael A. Flannery looks back at how Alfred Russel Wallace's take on evolution, which radically reintroduced notions of purpose and design, still speaks to us in a post-Darwin world where problems of sentience and of the origin of life remain, some would argue, as intractable as ever.

Jap Herron, the novel written, supposedly, by a deceased Mark Twain from beyond the grave, dictated via the medium of a Ouija board.

A Miles Brothers film of the legendary heavyweight prize boxing match between Bill Squires and Tommy Burns, played out at Ocean View, California, on July 4th 1907. Weighing in at a measly 178 pounds, the 5’7″ Canadian Burns was a 10-1 underdog against Australia’s Bill Squires who was coming off a 20 consecutive knockout streak. To the shock of all present, this mismatch came to an unexpected end in the first round when Burns KO’d Squires in one of the fastest knockouts in the history of boxing up to that point. The fight was labeled the “shortest and fiercest contest on record”. Burns would go on to secure a reputation for knocking out the biggest men in the sport. He wrote, in a book brought out in 1908, about how the face of boxing was changing, no longer being about brute strength but speed: “In modern boxing speed is nearly everything, and I have always considered my success to be primarily due to the fact that lacrosse and hockey had taught me to be spry and smart on my feet before I ever thought of donning a pair of boxing gloves.” Housed at: Internet Archive | From: The Library of […]