A Prophet of the Weather: Lantern Slides by Clement Lindley Wragge (ca. 1900–22) — The Public Domain Review
Wragge’s lecture style was grandiose, a rhetorical squall, a twister that gathered ideas from every discipline his mind roamed over. An observer of a 1902 lecture by Wragge described the…
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Flights of Fancy: The Nine Birds of Jacques de Fornazeris (1594) — The Public Domain Review
In 1594, the engraver Jacques de Fornazeris created a striking flight of nine bird portraits. The series marries technical flair with theatrical charm: the specimens are rendered in rich detail and…
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Cybernetic Attention: All Watched over by Machines We Learned to Watch
Before the attention economy consumed our lives, “pursuit tests” devised by the US military coupled man to machine with the aim of assessing focus under pressure. D. Graham Burnett explores…
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Autobiography of a “Jeep” (1943)
A WWII propaganda film narrated as an "auto"-biography Source link
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Sara Weiss’ Journeys to the Planet Mars (1903)
A forgotten bridge between Spiritualism and UFO encounters. Source link
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Sekka Zusetsu: A Book of Snowflakes (1832)
Observations of “snow flowers” made by microscope in Edo-era Japan. Source link
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Typing for Love or Money: The Hidden Women’s Labor behind Modern Literary Masterpieces — The Public Domain Review
As far as the archival records show, Véra took great pleasure in performing these duties, and the Nabokovs’ marriage was a happy one. Unhappy marriages, however, can also be productive…
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Snail Homes, Bog Bodies, and Mechanical Flies: Robert Testard’s Illustrations for Les secretz de l’histoire naturelle (ca. 1485)
A wondrous illuminated manuscript, which gathers and illustrates the marvels of the world and beyond. Source link
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Pigeons Transmogrified: Hannah Glasse’s *Art of Cookery* (1751 edition) — The Public Domain Review
For a modern-day reader, the language remains rich and succulent: she prescribes Eel Soop for those that “have a Stew-hole”; dishes are given names like “pigeons transmogrified”; the cookbook genre’s…
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Unbridled Passions: The Eight Horses of King Mu, Son of Heaven (ca. 1300) — The Public Domain Review
Particularly famous for his skill at depicting horses, Zhao believed that he had the ability to capture animals’ inner essence with his brush. The practice of evaluating steeds like this…
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