Thursday 4 August 2016 at 17:53
Journal of the Scottish botanist James McCrae recounting his 1825 voyage to Hawaii with the cousin of the poet Lord Byron.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/with-lord-byron-at-the-sandwich-islands-in-1825/
Wednesday 3 August 2016 at 17:18
The second essay in a two-part series in which Lily Ford explores how balloon flight transformed our ideas of landscape. Here she looks at the phenomenon of the panorama, and how its attempts at creating the immersive view were inextricably linked to the new visual experience opened up by the advent of ballooning.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2016/08/03/unlimiting-the-bounds-the-panorama-and-the-balloon-view/
Tuesday 2 August 2016 at 19:10
The varied tradition of alchemy has given birth to a whole host of strange and wondrous imagery over the centuries. Here we pick out some favourites.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-surreal-art-of-alchemical-diagrams/
Wednesday 27 July 2016 at 18:24
Punch magazine's vision of the smartphone zombie from 1906.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/a-vision-of-isolating-technology-from-1906/
Tuesday 26 July 2016 at 19:03
Utopian fiction delivering a vision of a one-class socialist utopia while at once offering a biting critique of unfettered capitalism.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/a-traveler-from-altruria-1894/
Wednesday 20 July 2016 at 17:37
The first essay in a two-part series in which Lily Ford explores how balloon flight transformed our ideas of landscape. We begin with a look at the unique set of images included in Thomas Baldwin's Airopaidia (1786) — the first real overhead aerial views.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2016/07/20/for-the-sake-of-the-prospect-experiencing-the-world-from-above-in-the-late-18th-century/
Tuesday 19 July 2016 at 19:45
Examples of Singerie, from the French for Monkey Trick, a genre of art in which monkeys are depicted aping human behaviour.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-singerie-monkeys-acting-as-humans-in-art/
Thursday 14 July 2016 at 17:08
A vision of the future from General Motors created to champion their "Highways and Horizons" exhibit at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/to-new-horizons-1940/
Wednesday 13 July 2016 at 17:25
An account of being confined in Ticehurst, a private asylum in Victorian Britain, by the author Herman Charles Merivale.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/my-experiences-in-a-lunatic-asylum-1879/
Wednesday 29 June 2016 at 16:51
Victorian sexuality is often considered synonymous with prudishness, conjuring images of covered up piano legs and dark ankle-length skirts. Historian Matthew Green uncovers a quite different scene in the sordid story of Holywell St, 19th-century London's epicentre of erotica and smut.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2016/06/29/the-secret-history-of-holywell-street-home-to-victorian-londons-dirty-book-trade/