The Public Domain Review

Today the Paris Catacombs are illuminated by electric lights and friendly guides. But when Félix Nadar descended into this “empire of death” in the 1860s artificial lighting was still in its infancy: the pioneering photographer had to face the quandary of how to take photographs in the subterranean dark. Allison C. Meier explores Nadar’s determined efforts (which involved Bunsen batteries, mannequins, and a good deal of patience) to document the beauty and terror of this realm of the dead.

Watercolours from an early twentieth-century book of spells depicting Persian demons associated with the zodiac.

Apocalyptic lithographs from the 19th century golden age of astrology, helmed by several astrologists writing under the name Raphael.

A collection of tales told by the Tlingit people of southeastern coastal Alaska and collected by the renowned ethnographer John Reed Swanton.

While nowadays he might be best known for the cut of meat that bears his name, François-René de Chateaubriand was once one of the most famous men in France — a giant of the literary scene and idolised by such future greats as Alphonse de Lamartine and Victor Hugo. Alex Andriesse explores Chateaubriand's celebrity and the glimpse behind the public mask we are given in his epic autobiography Memoirs From Beyond the Grave.

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

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

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

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

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.