The Public Domain Review

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

Anecdotes of Animals (1905)

Tuesday 20 November 2018 at 18:17

Book featuring a hundred real or real-ish tales of ingenious, loyal or otherwise extraordinary animals.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/anecdotes-of-animals-1905


Mesmerising Science: The Franklin Commission and the Modern Clinical Trial

Tuesday 20 November 2018 at 16:39

Benjamin Franklin, magnetic trees, and erotically-charged séances — Urte Laukaityte on how a craze for sessions of "animal magnetism" in late 18th-century Paris led to the randomised placebo-controlled and double-blind clinical trials we know and love today.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/mesmerising-science-the-franklin-commission-and-the-modern-clinical-trial


Nineteenth-Century Textspeak

Tuesday 13 November 2018 at 18:17

Poems from the Victorian era and before which anticipated 21st-century textspeak.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/nineteenth-century-textspeak


Landscapes of the Western Front, 1914–1918

Thursday 8 November 2018 at 16:12

Photographs for official army panoramas that offer, a century after their strategic function has passed, an unusual and haunting portrait of WW1.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/landscapes-of-the-western-front-1914-1918


East of the Sun and West of the Moon, illustrated by Kay Nielsen (1922 edition)

Tuesday 6 November 2018 at 19:34

Book of Norwegian fairytales and one of the finest creations to emerge from the golden age of illustration.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/east-of-the-sun-and-west-of-the-moon-illustrated-by-kay-nielsen-1922-edition


Elephants, Horses, and the Proportions of Paradise

Monday 5 November 2018 at 16:22

Does each species have an optimal form? An ideal beauty that existed prior to the Fall? These were questions that concerned both artists and breeders alike in the 17th century. Dániel Margócsy on the search for a menagerie of perfect prelapsarian geometry.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/elephants-horses-and-the-proportions-of-paradise


Kumataro Ito's Illustrations of Nudibranchs from the USS Albatross' Philippine Expedition (ca. 1908)

Thursday 1 November 2018 at 19:56

Remarkable depictions of nudibranchs from the waters of the Philippines in the early 20th century.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/kumataro-ito-s-illustrations-of-nudibranchs-from-the-uss-albatross-philippine-expedition-ca-1908


Spells Against the Evil Spirits of Babylonia (1903)

Wednesday 31 October 2018 at 16:56

Babylonian and Assyrian incantations against various demons, ghouls, vampires, hobgoblins, ghosts, and evil spirits.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/spells-against-the-evil-spirits-of-babylonia-1903


1970: A Vision of the Coming Age (1870)

Thursday 14 June 2018 at 18:09

A vision of the world hundred years in the future, in which societies have been transformed into Quakerly perfection.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/1970-a-vision-of-the-coming-age-1870/


British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions (1880)

Tuesday 12 June 2018 at 14:09

Wirt Sikes, US consul to Cardiff from 1876 to 1883, describes the mythology and traditions of Wales, a land steeped in folklore.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/british-goblins-welsh-folk-lore-fairy-mythology-legends-and-traditions-1880/