The Public Domain Review

The story of American artist Sarah Goodridge’s erotic self-portrait on a miniature ivory plate, given as a secret present to her lover, US Senator Daniel Webster.

A detailed guide to the old stories and landscapes of New York City, published in the last year of the 19th century.

Iconic illustrations of Australian mammals from a groundbreaking multi-volume work by the English naturalist John Gould, and his wife, the artist Elizabeth Gould.

In the 21st-century, infographics are everywhere. In the classroom, in the newspaper, in government reports, these concise visual representations of complicated information have changed the way we imagine our world. Susan Schulten explores the pioneering work of Emma Willard (1787–1870), a leading feminist educator whose innovative maps of time laid the groundwork for the charts and graphics of today.

Anthology of six plays by four leading Yiddish-language playwrights of the early 20th century, including Sholem Aleichem and Sholem Asch.

Early film about a cigarette-smoking jester who plays havoc with the world around her.

Startling Baroque paintings of imaginary ruins and other fantastic architecture by a proto-surrealist master.

Images have long provided a means of protesting political regimes bent on censoring language. In the 1830s a band of French caricaturists, led by Charles Philipon, weaponized the innocent image of a pear to criticize the corrupt and repressive policies of King Louis-Philippe. Patricia Mainardi investigates the history of this early 19th-century meme.

The strange, unhappy life of W. W. Denslow, the illustrator of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Groundbreaking study of humanity’s affect on physical geography by the American statesman, philologist, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.