The Public Domain Review

The Public Domain Review: Selected Essays, 2011-2013Paperback / 216mm x 140mm346 pages / 70lb paper / full colour34 essays / 146 illustrations We are very pleased to announce our very first foray into printed matter: a selection of essays from our first three years. Released through the newly born PDR Press, the book shall be the first in an annual “Selected Essays” series showcasing our top pick from the yearâ�¦

Mike Jay recounts the tragic story of James Tilly Matthews, a former peace activist of the Napoleonic Wars who was confined to London's notorious Bedlam asylum in 1797 for believing that his mind was under the control of the "Air Loom" - a terrifying machine whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror, and war.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the death by cocaine overdose of Austrian lyric poet Georg Trakl, Richard Millington explores the role the drug played in Trakl's life and works.

From that famed night of ghost-stories in a Lake Geneva villa in 1816, as well as Frankenstein's monster, there arose that other great figure of 19th-century gothic fiction - the Vampire - a creation of Lord Byron's personal physician John Polidiri. Andrew McConnell Stott explores how a fractious relationship between Polidiri and his poet employer lies behind the tale, with Lord Byron himself providing a model for the blood-sucking aristocratic figure of the legend we are familiar with today.

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This is an example page. It’s different from a blog post because it will stay in one place and will show up in your site navigation (in most themes). Most people start with an About page that introduces them to potential site visitors. It might say something like this: Hi there! I’m a bike messenger by day, aspiring actor by night, and this is my blog. I live in Losâ�¦

Ben Merriman presents a selection of piracy cases from the proceedings of London's Old Bailey. Although a few live up to the swashbuckling heists of stereotype, many reveal the surprisingly everyday nature of the maritime crimes brought before the court, including cases involving an argument over chickens and the stealing of a captain's hats.

In early 20th-century St. Louis, Pearl Curran claimed to have conjured a long-dead New England puritan named Patience Worth through a Ouija board. Although mostly unknown today, the resulting books, poems, and plays that Worth "dictated" to Curran earned great praise at the time. Ed Simon investigates the curious and nearly forgotten literary fruits of a “ghost” and her ghostwriter.

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