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The Monster (1903)

- January 16, 2014 in collections, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, early film, egypt, Film: 1900s, Films, Films: Fantasy, Films: Short, Georges Méliès, monsters, Underlying Work: PD Worldwide

A 1903 film directed by French filmmaker Georges Méliès and, as is common with his films, starring the man himself. The story centres on the chaotic, and ultimately futile, attempt to bring a dead Egyptian Princess back to life.

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Scenes relating to the life of Charles IV, King of Spain (1788)

- January 15, 2014 in charles IV, collections, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, Images, Images-18th, Images-Engraving-Line, king of spain, Library of Congress, numbers, spain, Underlying Work: PD Worldwide, woodcut

Woodcut print showing forty-eight numbered scenes relating to the life of Charles IV, King of Spain.

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Twelve Years a Slave (1859)

- January 14, 2014 in collections, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, Internet Archive, Library of Congress, memoir, memoirs, slave plantations, slavery, solomon northup, texts, Texts: 19th, Texts: Memoirs, Texts: Non-fiction, true story, twelve years a slave, Underlying Work: PD Worldwide

The memoir by Solomon Northup upon which the recent much acclaimed feature film, Twelve Years a Slave directed by Steve McQueen, was based. The narrative tells the harrowing true story of Northup, who was born free in New York state but kidnapped in Washington, D.C., sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana.

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Rainbow coloured beasts from 15th century Book of Hours

- January 9, 2014 in beasts, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, book of hours, collections, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, grotesques, Images, Images-15th, Images-Animals, Images-Illumination, medieval, monsters, Underlying Work: PD Worldwide

A selection of wonderful little illustrations found in a Book of Hours attributed to an artist of the Ghent-Bruges school and dating from the late 15th century. In the pages without full borders the margins have been decorated with an array of different images depicting flowers, birds, jewellery, animals, household utensils and these superb rainbow-coloured ‘grotesques’. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Found via: Demonagerie 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 - 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 […]

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Letters to my sister of our experiences on our first trip to Europe, 1913

- December 29, 2013 in 1913, collections, diary, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, Europe, first world war, Internet Archive, texts, Texts: 20th, Texts: Non-fiction, Underlying Work: PD US, University of Toronto Libraries, world war one, ww1

Letters to my sister of our experiences on our first trip to Europe 1913, by Lilian McCarron; publishing date most likely 1914, publisher unknown. A book of letters written by (the American or perhaps Canadian) Lilian McCarron to her sister detailing a trip she made around Europe in the latter half of 1913. A year later and Europe would be plunged into the beginnings of the First World War which would last 4 years and claim the lives of more than 9 million soldiers and devastate the lands on which it was played out. A certain sense of dramatic irony permeates the diary entries now, in which she describes the “pleasant” and “charming” cities of France and Germany, knowing as we do the horrors that would come in the following years. McCarron spends a large proportion of the trip in Germany, and in particular Berlin, arriving there only a few days after a military airship (a Zeppelin, the kind which would be instrumental in WW1) had crashed killing many experienced German Navy personnel. Her trip also coincided with the Empress’s birthday which saw much of the army on the streets, a sight which gave McCarron the impression that Berlin was […]

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The British Library’s “Mechanical Curator” million

- December 19, 2013 in British Library, collections, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, Images, Images-17th, Images-18th, Images-19th, Images-Animals, Images-Design, Images-Engraving-Line, Images-People, Images-Photography, Underlying Work: PD Worldwide

Last week the ever-incredible British Library announced that they were gifting more than 1 million images to the world, uploaded to Flickr Commons under the public domain mark, meaning complete freedom of re-use. The range and breadth of images is phenomenal. As they say in their post announcing the release the “images themselves cover a startling mix of subjects: There are maps, geological diagrams, beautiful illustrations, comical satire, illuminated and decorative letters, colourful illustrations, landscapes, wall-paintings and so much more that even we are not aware of”. Each image was extracted from its respective home (books making up a total of 65,000 already digitised volumes) by a program known as the ‘Mechanical Curator’, a creation of the British Library Labs project. A crowdsourcing application is being launched in the new year (likely using tools developed by our very own Open Knowledge Foundation!) to help describe what the images portray – and the British Library is also putting out a general plea for people to innovate new ways to navigate, find and display this incredible array of images. (Email BL Labs here). Although, of course, it will one day be wonderful to be able to sort and filter these images into […]

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Hand coloured photographs of 19th century Japan

- December 17, 2013 in albumine, collections, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, early photography, felice beato, Images, Images-19th, Images-People, Images-Photography, japan, Library of Congress, Underlying Work: PD Worldwide

A selection from a series of 42 hand coloured albumine prints – a process which used the albumen found in egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper – taken around 1880. The presence of the pictures in the Dutch National Archieff reflects a long relationship between Japan and the Netherlands, the result of an exclusive commercial relationship that would last for more than two centuries (1641-1855). Housed at: Flickr: The Commons | From: Nationaal Archieff Underlying Work: PD Worldwide | Digital Copy: No Additional Rights Download: Right click on image or see source for higher res versions The following pictures from the collections of the Library of Congress are by the Italian–British photographer Felice Beato (probably also the creator of the images above), one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. Library of Congress 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 […]

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Edward Lear’s Walk on a Windy Day (1860)

- December 12, 2013 in Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, birds, collections, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, edward lear, flying, humour, Images, Images-19th, Images-Animals, Images-Illustrations, Images-People, Underlying Work: PD Worldwide

An Edward Lear story concerning a man, referred to simply as E.L., taking the grave risk of going out for a walk on a windy day and living the consequences. These ten rare sketches are in a bound edition living in the Frederick R. Koch Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in Yale University. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript 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 - 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 […]

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Account of a Very Remarkable Young Musician (1769)

- December 5, 2013 in collections, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, Internet Archive, mozart, Royal Society, texts, Texts: 18th, Texts: Non-fiction, The Royal Society, Underlying Work: PD Worldwide, young

Account of a Very Remarkable Young Musician. In a Letter from the Honourable Daines Barrington, F. R. S. to Mathew Maty, M. D. Sec. R. S.; 1770; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of history’s most famous composers, began showing his talents when he was just 3 years old. By the age of 6 he was touring with his father and elder sister, also a talented musician. It was the young Mozart however who wowed the audiences. After a concert at the court of the Prince-elector Maximilian III of Bavaria in Munich, and at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague, the Mozart family embarked on a 3 and half year concert tour around the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zurich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. While in London, an 8 year old Mozart proved a huge sensation. But with his child prodigy status came questions from a skeptical few. Was he really so young? Was he really that talented? One person eager to test the truth of these doubts was Daines Barrington, a lawyer, antiquary, naturalist and Friend of the Royal Society. In a few visits […]

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Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type and Borders (1874)

- December 4, 2013 in chromatic wood type, collections, Columbia University Libraries, Digital Copy: No Additional Rights, Images, Images-19th, Images-Design, Internet Archive, typography, Underlying Work: PD Worldwide

Some select pages from the exquisite Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, Etc. (1874), a specimen book produced by the William H. Page wood type company. Chromatic types, which were made to print in two or more colours, were first produced as wood type by Edwin Allen, and shown by George Nesbitt in his 1841 Fourth Specimen of Machinery Cut Wood Type. It is William H Page’s book, however, that is considered to be the highpoint of chromatic wood type production. As well as providing over 100 pages of brilliantly coloured type, the book can also be seen, at times, to act as some sort of accidental experimental poetry volume, with such strange snippets as “Geographical excursion knives home” and “Numerous stolen mind” adorning its pages. One wonders whether the decisions about what words to feature and in what order were entirely arbitrary. Thanks to the wonderful Bibliodyssey blog where we came across the book: visit the post there for more info on the book and a great list of related links. Housed at: Internet Archive | From: Columbia University Libraries Found via: Bibliodyssey Underlying Work: PD Worldwide | Digital Copy: No Additional Rights Download: Right click on image or […]

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