A humorous 1917 blank notebook invites consideration of the fight for women’s suffrage in the USA.

During the 17th century, as knowledge of the Universe and its contents increased, so did speculation about life on other planets. One such source, as Hugh Aldersey-Williams explores, was Dutch astronomer, mathematician, and inventor Christiaan Huygens, whose earlier work on probability paved the way for his very modern evaluation of what alien life might look like.

Short pamphlet of conversations with Whitman in his last years by the art critic and poet Sadakichi Hartmann.

Three books combining pictures and verse about an Anglican cleric in search of the perfectly picturesque.

Engravings from an ambitious and beautiful attempt to catalogue, for the first time, the musical instruments of the world.

From fairy-rings to Lewis Carroll's Alice, mushrooms have long been entwined with the supernatural in art and literature. What might this say about past knowledge of hallucinogenic fungi? Mike Jay looks at early reports of mushroom-induced trips and how one species in particular became established as a stock motif of Victorian fairyland.

Stunning hand-colored photographs of life in Meiji-era Japan, from the Canadian businessman Herbert Geddes’ collection, acquired in Yokohama from 1908–1918.

A chapter from Charles Babbage’s The Life of a Philosopher railing against noise pollution in 19th-century London.

Artwork by the famous foundling Kaspar Hauser, ranging from pen-and-ink self-portraits to watercolour studies of fruit and flowers.

Vivid retellings of Korean folktales by an American scholar and Protestant minister, including several stories about the sprite Tokgabi.