The Public Domain Review

A film by Hans A. Spanuth for the series “Spanuth’s Original Vod-A-Vil Movies” filmed in Chicago. It shows the daring exploits of the the Kawana Trio, described in the opening credits as “Artistic Foot Jugglers”. The film is housed at Open Images, originally from the Library of Congress. HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our readers to stay afloat. If you like what we do then please do consider making a donation. We welcome all contributions, big or small - everything helps! Become a Patron Small angel : £3.00 GBP - monthly Medium sized hero : £5.00 GBP - monthly Large emperor : £10.00 GBP - monthly Vast deity : £20.00 GBP - monthly Make a one off Donation SIGN UP TO THE NEWSLETTER Sign up to get our free fortnightly newsletter which shall deliver direct to your inbox the latest brand new article and a digest of the most recent collection items. Simply add your details to the form below and click the link you receive via email to confirm your subscription! Name: E-mail:

A selection of folios from an illuminated manuscript of 17th century Ethiopia, produced during the cultural boom, especially in painting, brought about by the establishment of a permanent court at Gondar by the Solomonic emperor Fasilädäs (who reigned 1632-67). The nearly 50 full-page illuminations of this particular manuscript tell the story of the Archangel Michael who, under the patronage of Emperor Zär’a Ya’eqob, had became the most venerated of all archangels in Ethiopia. He is depicted undertaking a vast host of miracles and heroic feats including saving the faithful from the burning flames of hell, healing the sick and treading on Satan. The illustrations can also teach us about the Ethiopia of the time. According to The Walters Art Museum, “the minutely rendered textiles in these pictures suggest a connection with the fashions of the Gondarine court and indicate that the painters depicted their scriptural subjects using a visual language rooted in contemporary culture.” The Walters Art Museum Underlying Work: PD Worldwide | Digital Copy: No Additional Rights Download: Right click on image or see source for higher res versions HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our [...]

Bible symbols, designed and arranged to stimulate a greater interest in the study of the Bible by both young and old. The choicest passages of God’s word put in the fascinating garb of pictures by Frank Beard and others. Text prepared and arranged by Martha Van Marter; 1908; Hertel, Jenkins Co., Chicago. As the subtitle eloquently explains “The choicest passages of God’s word put in the fascinating garb of pictures”. Housed at: Internet Archive | From: Princeton Theological Seminary Library Underlying Work: PD U.S. | Digital Copy: No Additional Rights Download: PDF | Torrent HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our readers to stay afloat. If you like what we do then please do consider making a donation. We welcome all contributions, big or small - everything helps! Become a Patron Small angel : £3.00 GBP - monthly Medium sized hero : £5.00 GBP - monthly Large emperor : £10.00 GBP - monthly Vast deity : £20.00 GBP - monthly Make a one off Donation SIGN UP TO THE NEWSLETTER Sign up to get our free fortnightly newsletter which shall deliver direct to your inbox the latest [...]

In 1621 Robert Burton first published his masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy, a…

A selection from a collection of early 20th century lantern slides held at the Fylkesarkivet of Sogn og Fjordane, a county in the west of Norway. The slides are produced by at least two British photographers – professional photographer Samuel J. Beckett and amateur photographer P. Heywood Hadfield, who was a ship’s surgeon employed by the Orient Steam Navigation Company. Hadfield produced several illustrated books from his travels, including With an Ocean Liner (Orient Co’s S.S. “Ophir”) through the Fiords of Norway. A Photographic Memento of a Fortnight’s Cruising, published in several editions by the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Co. Ltd in the early 1900s. Beckett also produced a book on Norway The Fjords and Folk of Norway, first published in 1915 by Methuen & Co. Ltd. Learn more about Lantern Slides here. (All images taken from the Flickr Commons collection of the Fylkesarkivet i Sogn og Fjordane. Visit for higher resolution images and for more details on each photograph). HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our readers to stay afloat. If you like what we do then please do consider making a donation. We welcome all [...]

Not the same Vanity Fair of current fame, this was a version published by The Commonwealth Publishing Company of New York City, incorporated in February 1902 but which went bankrupt in April 1904. “Vanity Fair” has been the title for at least 5 magazines, and as a phrase became popular through John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress where it was the name for Beelzebub’s dominion, and later also as the title of William Thackeray’s 1848 novel. Dian Hansen in the first volume of her History of Men’s Magazines (Taschen, 2004) discusses the “Bifurcated Girls” special issue and argues that this particular incarnation of Vanity Fair can be seen as the origin of the American girlie magazine: While France had a well-established men’s magazine industry by 1900, America was just showing its ankles in 1903. A magazine called Vanity Fair (unrelated to the current incarnation) was the raciest thing around, and rooming house loozies the hotties of the time. In this New York, tabloid girls who drank like men might strip down to their petticoats and fall into bed together, exposing their corset cover and stockings to peeping male boarders. The famously loose morals of stage actresses made them popular subjects for these [...]

At the time of his death in 2001 at the age of 57, the German writer W.G. Sebald was cited by many critics as a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. It was his book The Rings of Saturn, written in 1995 (translated into English in 1998), which went a long way to securing Sebald’s reputation as a writer pioneering a new kind of literary fiction. The book is exemplary of his strange and unique style: the hybridity of genres, the blurring of fact and fiction, the indistinct black and white photographs, and his meditation on the destructive nature of history, the human lives affected, and the restorative power of art. The book is, on one level, a walking tour through the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, Sebald’s adopted home (he’d taught literature at the UEA there since 1970). The reader moves with the melancholic narrator from town to town, village to village, but in the process – through an astonishing network of associations, tangents, and apparent coincidences – one is led all over the world, into many different times, and many different lives. A ride on a miniature railway at Somerleyton Hall leads to 19th century [...]

A compilation of Jelly Roll Morton’s classic Chicago “Red Hot Peppers” sessions, recorded in 1926-27. Jelly Roll Morton – ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer from New Orleans, Louisiana – started out his musical career playing brothels as a teenager, then toured the American South as part of a minstrel show, before settling in Chicago where he started to write songs. Widely recognized as a pivotal figure in early jazz, Morton is perhaps most notable as jazz’s first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential spirit and characteristics when notated. In 1915, his composition “Jelly Roll Blues” became the first ever published jazz composition. Morton is also notable for naming and popularizing the “Spanish tinge” (habanera rhythm and tresillo), and for writing such standards as “Wolverine Blues”, “Black Bottom Stomp”, and “I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say”, the latter a tribute to New Orleans personalities from the turn of the 19th century to 20th century. (Wikipedia) MP3 Download Internet Archive Link Some songs, if not composed by Jelly Roll Morton, may still be under copyright in certain places. Please check status in your jurisdiction before re-using. HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The [...]

City streets, a winepress, pulleys, spinning tops, a ray fish, curdled milk: just a…

Selected images from a massive late 19th century tome entitled simply Magic, subtitled Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, including Trick Photography, compiled and edited by Albert A. Hopkins. The book takes a thorough tour through the popular magic tricks and illusions of the day, including along the way many delightfully surreal diagrams and illustrations, the top pick of which we’ve included here – often especially great when seen out of context. Towards the end are some particularly great “decapitation” trick photographs. See the book, with explanatory text and many more illustrations over in our post in the Texts collection. Housed at: Internet Archive | From: California Digital Library Underlying Work: PD Worldwide | Digital Copy: No Additional Rights Download: Right click on image or see source for higher res versions HELP TO KEEP US AFLOAT The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project and we rely on support from our readers to stay afloat. If you like what we do then please do consider making a donation. We welcome all contributions, big or small - everything helps! Become a Patron Small angel : £3.00 GBP - monthly Medium sized hero : £5.00 GBP - monthly Large emperor : £10.00 GBP [...]