The Public Domain Review

In contrast to today’s rather mundane spawn of coffeehouse chains, the Lond…

CURATOR’S CHOICE #2: DANIEL HORST FROM THE RIJSKMUSEUM Daniel Horst, research associate at the Rijksmuseum, explores the controversial collection of satirical etchings published by Abraham Allard in Amsterdam ca. 1708 under the title ‘t Lusthof van Momus. One of the lesser known sub-collections of the Rijksmuseum’s impressive and rapidly growing collection of digitised works is the set of ‘history pictures’ compiled by the Amsterdam art dealer, auctioneer and publisher Frederik Muller (1817-1881). After his death in 1881 the Rijksmuseum was able to acquire this important collection of c. 25.000 prints, drawings and books illustrating the history of the Netherlands, including a remarkable series of prints published in 1713 by the Dutch printmaker Abraham Allard under the title ‘t Lust-Hof van Momus (Fig. 1). In translation the full title reads: The Court of Momus, planted with the principal crops of Mars in Europe and decorated with political emblems of the current war and embellished with elegant historical and satirical poems. The volume contains 127 prints, all of which pertain to the war between the Dutch Republic and France, part of the War of the Spanish Succession which raged in continental Europe and overseas between 1701 and 1714. Although Abraham Allard (1676-1725) […]

Nursery Lessons in Words of One Syllable; 1838; Darton and Harvey, London. A charming little illustrated book for young readers, consisting entirely of words of one syllable. Housed at: Internet Archive | From: California Digital Library Found via: Tiffany Johnson Underlying Work: PD Worldwide | Digital Copy: No Additional Rights Download: PDF | Kindle | EPUB | Torrent HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our readers to stay afloat. If you like what we do then please do consider making a donation. We welcome all contributions, big or small - everything helps! Become a Patron Small angel : £3.00 GBP - monthly Medium sized hero : £5.00 GBP - monthly Large emperor : £10.00 GBP - monthly Vast deity : £20.00 GBP - monthly Make a one off Donation SIGN UP TO THE NEWSLETTER Sign up to get our free fortnightly newsletter which shall deliver direct to your inbox the latest brand new article and a digest of the most recent collection items. Simply add your details to the form below and click the link you receive via email to confirm your subscription! Name: E-mail:

Anatomical diagram from William Carver’s Practical horse farrier, or, The traveller’s pocket companion: shewing the best method to preserve the horse in health; and likewise the cure of the most prominent diseases to which this noble animal is subject, in the United States of America : the whole being the result of nearly forty years’ experience, with an extensive practice, published in 1820. U.S. National Library of Medicine Underlying Work: PD Worldwide | Digital Copy: No Additional Rights Download: Right click on image or see source for higher res versions HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our readers to stay afloat. If you like what we do then please do consider making a donation. We welcome all contributions, big or small - everything helps! Become a Patron Small angel : £3.00 GBP - monthly Medium sized hero : £5.00 GBP - monthly Large emperor : £10.00 GBP - monthly Vast deity : £20.00 GBP - monthly Make a one off Donation SIGN UP TO THE NEWSLETTER Sign up to get our free fortnightly newsletter which shall deliver direct to your inbox the latest brand new article and […]

The Life and Adventures of James F. O’Connell the Tattooed Man, by James F. O’Connell; 1845; W. Applegate, New-York. One of the main attractions at P.T. Barnum’s 1842 ‘freakshow’ American Museum was a man named James F. O’Connell, notable for his head to toe covering in tattoos, the U.S.’s first tattooed showman. To accompany his unusual appearance, the show featured O’Connell telling of how he received his tattoo during his years of captivity in the South Pacific. According to his account he became shipwrecked on the Caroline Islands and saved himself from death at the hands of the Ponapeans natives by performing a series of Irish jigs for their amusement. Though his life was spared he tells of how he was subject to a compulsory tattooing at the hands of a series of “voluptuous virgins” and how he was forced to marry the last of his tattooers. When a ship landed on the island in 1833 (some 5 years or so since his shipwreck there in the late 1820s) O’Connell left, making his way to the U.S. where he eventually ended up working in P.T.Barnum’s ‘freakshow’, telling tales of the eight day long process of tattooing he underwent and performing […]

A short silent clip from a Dutch newsreel showing a man somersaulting through the streets. Housed at: Open Images | From: Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision Underlying Work: No Known Copyright Restrictions | Digital Copy: Share Alike Download: Ogg | Mpeg4 HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our readers to stay afloat. If you like what we do then please do consider making a donation. We welcome all contributions, big or small - everything helps! Become a Patron Small angel : £3.00 GBP - monthly Medium sized hero : £5.00 GBP - monthly Large emperor : £10.00 GBP - monthly Vast deity : £20.00 GBP - monthly Make a one off Donation SIGN UP TO THE NEWSLETTER Sign up to get our free fortnightly newsletter which shall deliver direct to your inbox the latest brand new article and a digest of the most recent collection items. Simply add your details to the form below and click the link you receive via email to confirm your subscription! Name: E-mail:

Nadja Durbach questions the extent to which Joseph Merrick, known as the Elephant M…

The 2013 Tour de France marks the 100th of the event’s history, which began in 1903 (the competition was put on hold during the two world wars). Strangely, this inaugural event of 1903 had it’s origins in one of France’s greatest political scandals – the Dreyfuss Affair. In 1894 a young French artillery officer of Jewish descent, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was convicted of high treason but then, years later, was proven to be innocent in the light of new evidence, evidence which the military attempted to suppress. The ensuing debate over Dreyfuss’ innocence, and the wider issues of anti-semitism in which it was embedded, divided the nation. One such division occurred within France’s most popular cycling magazine L’Velo, causing it to split into two when an anti-Dreyfuss contingent broke away to form L’Auto-Velo. L’Velo‘s owner won a court case forcing L’Auto-Velo to change their name, which they did, to L’Auto, a move which saw their sales subsequently plummet. In an effort to boost their waning popularity, and win back their cycling fans, L’Auto set up the Tour de France in 1903. It was a hugely successful campaign which caused their sales to increase 6-fold during and after the race and, […]

The Book of Wonderful Characters, Memoirs and anecdotes of remarkable and eccentric persons in all ages and countries; 1869; J. C. Hotten, London. Printmaker James Caulfield (1764–1826) spent much of his career publishing illustrated books about ‘remarkable persons’. He began his first series around 1788 and continued it sporadically from 1790 to 1795, with books on a similar theme continuing to appear in the first decades of the nineteenth century. More than forty years after his death, this collection of biographies (produced in collaboration with Henry Wilson (fl. 1820–30)) was republished in 1869. The vignettes, accompanied by engravings of each individual, describe a wide-ranging group – from the man who died aged 152 to a ‘remarkable glutton’ to a woman who lived on the smell of flowers – their only common factor being that they were in some way ‘wonderful’. (Text via Cambridge University Press, through which you can buy a 2012 reprint edition). Housed at: Internet Archive | From: California Digital Library Underlying Work: PD Worldwide | Digital Copy: No Additional Rights Download: PDF | Kindle | EPUB HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our readers […]

Illustrations of various strains of pollen in extreme magnification, as featured in Ueber den Pollen (1837), a book by St. Petersburg based German pharmacist and chemist Carl Julius Fritzsche. For a key identifying each pollen type pictured see these descriptions (in German) Housed at: Internet ArchiveFrom: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign via Biodiversity Heritage Library Underlying Work: PD Worldwide | Digital Copy: No Additional Rights Download: Right click on image or see source for higher res versions The Dartmouth Electron Microscope Facility at Dartmouth College produced this photograph showing pollen strains at similar magnifications to those shown in Fritzsche’s book (around 500 times magnification). HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our readers to stay afloat. If you like what we do then please do consider making a donation. We welcome all contributions, big or small - everything helps! Become a Patron Small angel : £3.00 GBP - monthly Medium sized hero : £5.00 GBP - monthly Large emperor : £10.00 GBP - monthly Vast deity : £20.00 GBP - monthly Make a one off Donation SIGN UP TO THE NEWSLETTER Sign up to get our free fortnightly newsletter […]