The Public Domain Review

This is just an automatic copy of Public Domain Review blog.

First Paper to Link CO2 and Global Warming, by Eunice Foote (1856)

Thursday 3 October 2019 at 07:04

The first paper to link carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and earth heating.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/first-paper-to-link-co2-and-global-warming-by-eunice-foote-1856


Augustus Jansson’s Queen City Ink Adverts (1903–1907)

Tuesday 1 October 2019 at 07:05

Wonderful series of proto-Art Deco adverts for a Cincinnati-based ink company.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/augustus-janssons-queen-city-ink-adverts-1903-1907


The Narrative of Henry Box Brown (1849)

Thursday 26 September 2019 at 07:06

Account of a Virginian slave's daring escape from his plantation in a box and subsequent life as a free man.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-narrative-of-henry-box-brown-1849


Photographs of Japanese Sword Guards (1916)

Tuesday 24 September 2019 at 07:07

Exquisite photographs of tsuba, or sword guards, from medieval and early modern Japan.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/photographs-of-japanese-sword-guards-1916


Greenland Unicorns and the Magical Alicorn

Thursday 19 September 2019 at 02:00

When the existence of unicorns, and the curative powers of the horns ascribed to them, began to be questioned, one Danish physician pushed back through curious means — by reframing the unicorn as an aquatic creature of the northern seas. Natalie Lawrence on a fascinating convergence of established folklore, nascent science, and pharmaceutical economy.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/greenland-unicorns-and-the-magical-alicorn


Buffon and de Sève’s Quadrupeds (1754)

Tuesday 17 September 2019 at 07:08

Colorful illustrations of four-legged creatures first included in Buffon’s pioneering eighteenth-century books on natural history.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/buffon-and-de-seves-quadrupeds-1754


Chester Harding’s My Egotistigraphy (1866)

Tuesday 10 September 2019 at 07:09

Privately published memoir of an American portraitist who grew up in a log cabin and went on to paint presidents, congressmen, philanthropists, and Daniel Boone.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/chester-hardings-my-egotistigraphy-1866


John O. Westwood’s Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts (1868)

Wednesday 4 September 2019 at 07:10

Impressive Victorian lithographs of Anglo-Saxon and early Irish illuminated manuscripts from the dark ages and early medieval period.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/john-o-westwoods-facsimiles-of-anglo-saxon-and-irish-manuscripts-1868


Woodblocks in Wonderland: The Japanese Fairy Tale Series

Tuesday 3 September 2019 at 02:00

From gift-bestowing sparrows and peach-born heroes to goblin spiders and dancing phantom cats — in a series of beautifully illustrated books, the majority printed on an unusual cloth-like crepe paper, the publisher Takejiro Hasegawa introduced Japanese folk tales to the West. Christopher DeCou on how a pioneering cross-cultural endeavour gave rise to a magnificent chapter in the history of children's publishing.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/woodblocks-in-wonderland-the-japanese-fairy-tale-series


Octave Uzanne’s “The End of Books” (1894)

Monday 2 September 2019 at 07:11

Over a century before the invention of the e-reader, a French bibliophile imagines how advances in phonographic technology might spell the end of all printed text.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/octave-uzannes-the-end-of-books-1894