Nostr notes by The Public Domain Review

#OnThisDay in 1815, Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted: the ...

2026-04-05T11:46:11Z

#OnThisDay in 1815, Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted: the most powerful in human recorded history. As well as killing 71,000, it led to Europe's "Year Without Summer", climate refugees, and the creation of Shelley's Frankenstein... https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/frankenstein-the-baroness-and-the-climate-refugees-of-1816 #otd

In the early 16th century Albrecht Durer produced 6 woodcuts of ...

2026-04-03T11:47:09Z

In the early 16th century Albrecht Durer produced 6 woodcuts of knot patterns, likely inspired by Mamluk decorative metalwork. Each knot is a group of intricately entwined infinity loops made up of repeating patterns that follow circular paths: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/durer-knots/

Nikolai Agnivtsev’s Little Screw (1925) — a Soviet ...

2026-04-02T16:46:47Z

Nikolai Agnivtsev’s Little Screw (1925) — a Soviet children’s book about a modest factory screw whose importance is overlooked. Read on our site, and also watch a 1927 animated version of the story: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/little-screw/

Banana Tree Flower with Io Moth, by Maria Sibylla Merian — who ...

2026-04-02T11:47:26Z

Banana Tree Flower with Io Moth, by Maria Sibylla Merian — who was born #onthisday in 1647.

From her pioneering Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (Insects of Suriname), first published in 1705.

See more prints by her in our online prints shop: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints/artist/maria-sibylla-merian

Happy #WorldPoetryDay! Explore our essays on poetry themes, ...

2026-03-21T12:48:11Z

Happy #WorldPoetryDay! Explore our essays on poetry themes, including pieces on John Milton, Walt Whitman, G.M. Hopkins, A.C. Swinburne, Lewis Carroll, and Phillis Wheatley: https://publicdomainreview.org/essays/category/poetry

For the first day of spring ... the glorious print of tulips from ...

2026-03-20T20:46:14Z

For the first day of spring ... the glorious print of tulips from Robert John Thornton's stunning “Temple of Flora” (1807): https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/search/?q=thornton

Read more about the Thornton's work here in Martin Kemp's essay here: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/sex-and-science-in-robert-thornton-s-temple-of-flora

NEW ESSAY — “Fear and Fragility: The Glass Delusion and Its ...

2026-03-19T15:52:37Z

NEW ESSAY — “Fear and Fragility: The Glass Delusion and Its History” — In early modern Europe, patients started appearing in medical records with a particular ailment: a firm belief that they were made of glass. Tamara Sanderson explores: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/fear-and-fragility-the-glass-delusion-and-its-history/

The Lord's Prayer in what is now known as Plains Indian Sign ...

2026-03-19T12:48:25Z

The Lord's Prayer in what is now known as Plains Indian Sign Language or Plains Sign Talk — a sign language that operated as a lingua franca between tribes across N. America. From Lewis Francis Hadley's Indian Sign Talk (1893). More in our latest post: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/indian-sign-talk

At the height of the US postcard craze, “tall-tale” cards ...

2026-03-11T17:46:29Z

At the height of the US postcard craze, “tall-tale” cards often imagined a land of giant-sized plenty. In this 1909 series, Californian rail cars haul colossal fruit and veg — turning agricultural pride into something surreal and strangely beautiful: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/giant-produce-postcards/

#OnThisDay in 1818, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was 1st ...

2026-03-11T12:47:55Z

#OnThisDay in 1818, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was 1st published. It's not been out of print since. Read Sharon Ruston on the scientific background to the novel incl. contemporary investigations into the possibility of states between life and death: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-science-of-life-and-death-in-mary-shelleys-frankenstein #otd

Electrical Light in Rarefied Gas, by M. Rapine, from French ...

2026-03-10T17:47:34Z

Electrical Light in Rarefied Gas, by M. Rapine, from French science writer Amédée Guillemin’s Les phénomènes de la physique (1868).⠀⁠
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See more wonderful images from Guillemin’s physics books on our site — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/optics-illustrations-from-the-physics-textbooks-of-amedee-guillemin-1868-1882 https://twitter.com/PublicDomainRev/status/1359629681641852936/photo/1

For #NationalNappingDay (which was yesterday, seems we slept ...

2026-03-10T12:48:12Z

For #NationalNappingDay (which was yesterday, seems we slept through it...) a Danny Tipsmark Blaabjerg (npub1hh6…9v9t) paper from ca. 1698 describing the bizarre case of a man who would periodically fall into a “profound sleep” from which no-one could wake him for months at a time: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-relation-of-an-extraordinary-sleepy-person-ca-1698

Celebrate #WorldBookDay with a look at some of the most beautiful ...

2026-03-05T17:45:37Z

Celebrate #WorldBookDay with a look at some of the most beautiful and unusual examples from the first 100 years of the “modern” book cover, since the rise of publishers' bindings circa 1820: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-book-covers-1820-1914

A few of the 53 "potted landscapes" made for each of the ...

2026-03-04T17:46:28Z

A few of the 53 "potted landscapes" made for each of the stations of the Tōkaidō road, the most important route in Edo-period Japan. After they were made the artist had a relatively obscure ukiyo-e artist named Utagawa Yoshishige to illustrate them: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/53-stations-of-the-tokaido-as-potted-landscapes-1848

Javanese artist Raden Soelardi’s elegant 1919 illustrations of ...

2026-03-03T15:16:12Z

Javanese artist Raden Soelardi’s elegant 1919 illustrations of the shadow puppetry form known as wayang kulit: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/javanese-shadow-puppets/

In the days after the devastating 1855 Edo earthquake, a new ...

2026-02-18T15:16:37Z

In the days after the devastating 1855 Edo earthquake, a new genre of artwork flourished amid the rubble, a remarkable range of prints featuring the rascal-like figure of Namazu, a giant catfish who caused the earth to shake with its underground writhing: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/earthquakes-in-japanese-woodblock-prints/

This unique self-portrait, also known as “view from the left ...

2026-02-18T12:46:35Z

This unique self-portrait, also known as “view from the left eye”, is the creation of Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (famous for his work on supersonic fluid mechanics), who was born #onthisday in 1838. Read more about the image here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/self-portrait-by-ernst-mach-1886 #OTD

A few of the stunning illustrations from a 16th-century treatise ...

2026-02-12T20:46:20Z

A few of the stunning illustrations from a 16th-century treatise on comets — known as The Comet Book — created anonymously in Flanders (now northern France).

More info and images from the book here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-comet-book

Born #onthisday in 1809, Abraham Lincoln. Pictured here: a detail ...

2026-02-12T12:48:30Z

Born #onthisday in 1809, Abraham Lincoln. Pictured here: a detail featuring Lincoln's contribution to a unique + brilliant project begun in 1856 by a 17-yr-old girl from Rhode Island named Adeline Harris Sears — a quilt made of 360+ celeb autographs: https://buff.ly/2VnkM0L #otd

From James Sowerby's British Mineralogy (1802–1817). ...

2026-02-10T17:47:51Z

From James Sowerby's British Mineralogy (1802–1817).

Despite his scientific leanings, Sowerby was first and foremost an artist, adept in describing and demonstrating how complex questions of perspective, scale, and color functioned in individual objects: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/sowerby-mineralogy

Illustrations from William F. Warren's The Universe as ...

2026-02-10T15:17:19Z

Illustrations from William F. Warren's The Universe as Pictured in Milton’s Paradise Lost (1915). More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-universe-as-pictured-in-miltons-paradise-lost

Caroline Shawk Brooks (1840–1913) — also known as “The ...

2026-02-06T17:48:10Z

Caroline Shawk Brooks (1840–1913) — also known as “The Butter Woman” or the “Centennial Butter Sculptress” — was famous for her sculptures fashioned entirely out of.... yes, butter. More here: https://buff.ly/2fb9wOE

Murderous pigs sent to the gallows, sparrows prosecuted for ...

2026-02-05T17:47:23Z

Murderous pigs sent to the gallows, sparrows prosecuted for chattering in church, a gang of thieving rats let off on a wholly technical acquittal — Nicholas Humphrey explores the strange world of medieval animal trials: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/bugs-and-beasts-before-the-law?utm_content=buffer0fbd0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Yaggy's Geographical Study (1887) is a set of elaborate ...

2026-02-04T15:18:20Z

Yaggy's Geographical Study (1887) is a set of elaborate large-scale maps for children, some of which reveal extra details via flaps fastened by metal latches and lighting from behind. See the post on our website: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/yaggy-geographical-maps

125 photographs of life in Palestine before the British Mandate, ...

2026-02-04T12:47:34Z

125 photographs of life in Palestine before the British Mandate, ca. 1896–1919: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/photographs-of-palestinian-life

Pages from a 1902 issue of Shin-Bijutsukai (New Oceans of Art), a ...

2026-02-03T20:46:27Z

Pages from a 1902 issue of Shin-Bijutsukai (New Oceans of Art), a design magazine produced at a watershed in Japanese publishing history: when pattern books became standalone works of art: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/japanese-designs-1902

The medieval "Egg Dance", as depicted by Pieter Brueghel ...

2026-02-03T12:46:16Z

The medieval "Egg Dance", as depicted by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, ca. 1620.

More on the egg dance here:https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-egg-dance-from-peasant-village-to-political-caricature

One of the many wonderful illustrations to be found in an 1837 ...

2026-02-02T15:16:34Z

One of the many wonderful illustrations to be found in an 1837 "caterpillar calendar", an entomological volume by the aptly named Christian Friedrich Vogel outlining which caterpillars appear each month. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/images-from-german-caterpillar-calendar-1837?utm_content=buffer35096&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer (from @BioDivLibrary & @SILibraries)

Albrecht Dürer’s Pillow Studies (1493) — Completed in his ...

2026-01-29T20:48:22Z

Albrecht Dürer’s Pillow Studies (1493) — Completed in his early twenties, the work seems to slip between the waking world and the stuff of dreams... https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/durer-pillow-studies

Agnes Giberne's The Story of the Sun, Moon, and Stars (1898) ...

2026-01-28T15:16:09Z

Agnes Giberne's The Story of the Sun, Moon, and Stars (1898) transports us to the most remote astral bodies, but also quickens every reader’s lost seven-year-old sensibility that the universe was made to be brought within one’s humble yet unbounded reach: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/story-of-sun-moon-stars

#Onthisday in 1640, Robert Burton passed away in his chambers at ...

2026-01-25T15:15:29Z

#Onthisday in 1640, Robert Burton passed away in his chambers at Christ Church, Oxford, rumoured to the result of suicide by hanging. Learn more about his great masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy in @nogaarikha's essay "As a Lute out of Tune": https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/as-a-lute-out-of-tune-robert-burtons-melancholy #otd

A few of the 350+ slides used by theosophist and meteorologist ...

2026-01-22T15:17:06Z

A few of the 350+ slides used by theosophist and meteorologist Clement Lindley Wragge in various magic lantern lectures, with titles like: “A Voyage through the Universe” (1902), and “The Endless Universe and Eternal Life” (1918–22). More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/wragge-lantern-slides/

France in 2000, as envisaged in 1899. Some tech is wonderfully ...

2026-01-20T20:46:47Z

France in 2000, as envisaged in 1899. Some tech is wonderfully prescient: we've versions of Zoom, a vacuum cleaner, drone deliveries. Other visions less so, particularly those anticipating a life beneath the waves, of underwater croquet + whale buses... https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vision-of-the-year-2000/

José Guadalupe Posada, the artist who'd become most ...

2026-01-20T12:48:11Z

José Guadalupe Posada, the artist who'd become most associated with the Day of the Dead, had his very own day of death #onthisday in 1913. He was best known for his "calaveras", highly politicised illustrations featuring skulls and skeletons: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-calaveras-of-jose-guadalupe-posada #otd

Pages from Master of Claude de France’s Book of Flower Studies ...

2026-01-19T15:18:57Z

Pages from Master of Claude de France’s Book of Flower Studies (ca. 1510–1515), including some delightful play with scale. From the @metmuseum.

More in our post: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/book-of-flower-studies/

Died #onthisday in 1834, Giovanni Aldini, the Italian ...

2026-01-17T15:18:08Z

Died #onthisday in 1834, Giovanni Aldini, the Italian "galvanist" whose experiments in animating the muscles of the dead with electricity inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Read more in our essay by Sharon Ruston: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-science-of-life-and-death-in-mary-shelleys-frankenstein

Born #onthisday in 1574, the great occult philosopher Robert ...

2026-01-17T12:47:03Z

Born #onthisday in 1574, the great occult philosopher Robert Fludd. Pictured here his image of the "spiritual brain". More about the man and his philosophy in our essay by Urszula Szulakowska: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/robert-fludd-and-his-images-of-the-divine #otd

Uncharacteristically ominous title card from The Sky, a wonderful ...

2026-01-16T17:46:24Z

Uncharacteristically ominous title card from The Sky, a wonderful educational film from 1928 looking at the wonders of the night sky to be seen through a telescope, including constellations, the moon, the planets, and the sun. Watch it here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-sky-a-film-lesson-in-nature-study-1928

Inventor Robert Pittis Scott's Cycling Art, Energy, and ...

2026-01-14T17:46:44Z

Inventor Robert Pittis Scott's Cycling Art, Energy, and Locomotion (1889) offers a whimsical and illustrated tour through the previous century of “man-motor locomotion” including a second half dedicated to unusual patents: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/cycling-art

Susan Schulten explores the pioneering work of Emma Willard ...

2026-01-13T17:47:55Z

Susan Schulten explores the pioneering work of Emma Willard (1787–1870), a leading feminist educator whose innovative maps of time laid the groundwork for the charts and infographics of today: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/emma-willard-maps-of-time

A few of the 80+ illustrations by Pauline Knip for Les Pigeons ...

2026-01-07T20:48:22Z

A few of the 80+ illustrations by Pauline Knip for Les Pigeons (1810), a publication mired in controversy. See our post for more of the stunning images, and a story of plagiarism, power, pretence and... pigeons: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/les-pigeons

These rebus-style Buddhist texts were made for illiterate people. ...

2026-01-06T17:47:21Z

These rebus-style Buddhist texts were made for illiterate people. Each picture, when sounded out in Japanese, would approximate the Classical Chinese syllables in which the sutra or hymn should be recited. More here: https://buff.ly/3reC8vg

Born #onthisday in 1832, the French illustrator Gustave Doré. ...

2026-01-06T12:46:00Z

Born #onthisday in 1832, the French illustrator Gustave Doré. Pictured is the “The New Zealander”, the last of Doré's plates for London: A Pilgrimage (1872) in which he depicts a distant traveller from New Zealand sketching the ruins of a future London: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dore-new-zealander

As many embark boldly (and perhaps temporarily) on brand new gym ...

2026-01-05T15:17:23Z

As many embark boldly (and perhaps temporarily) on brand new gym memberships, here's a look at where it all started: the workout machines of the 19th century: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/zander-gym

Born #onthisday in 1785, Jacob Grimm, the elder of the famous ...

2026-01-04T12:47:54Z

Born #onthisday in 1785, Jacob Grimm, the elder of the famous folklorist brothers. Read Jack Zipes' essay exploring the importance of the neglected first edition of their Kinder-und Hausmärchen and what it tells us about their motives and passions: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-forgotten-tales-of-the-brothers-grimm #otd

The Book of the Homeless (1916) was a collection of essays, art, ...

2026-01-03T15:17:02Z

The Book of the Homeless (1916) was a collection of essays, art, poetry, and musical scores, edited by Edith Wharton, whose profits were used to fund civilians displaced by WWI. Including works by Conrad, Monet, Yeats, Cocteau, and Rodin (pictured here) https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-book-of-the-homeless-1916?utm_content=buffer0a282&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

New year's resolution to do more exercise? A business man? ...

2026-01-02T15:16:27Z

New year's resolution to do more exercise? A business man? Then this 1917 book, Physical Training for Business Men, may be the perfect January read. (And for everyone else, you can just look at the spellbinding photos). More here: https://buff.ly/3pJoD46

Happy Public Domain Day! At the start of each year, a new set of ...

2026-01-01T15:39:58Z

Happy Public Domain Day! At the start of each year, a new set of works is freed from copyright — ready to be shared, reused, and reimagined. See our highlights — Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, Langston Hughes, William Faulkner, and many more. https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2026/01/public-domain-day-2026/ #publicdomain

Happy Public Domain Day 2025!⁠ It's the day at the start of ...

2026-01-01T15:16:15Z

Happy Public Domain Day 2025!⁠

It's the day at the start of each year on which works enter the public domain. See our highlights — featuring Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner and others — here: https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/01/public-domain-day-2025/

The New Year has come, A fresh and rosy child; See! he clasps the ...

2026-01-01T12:45:57Z

The New Year has come,
A fresh and rosy child;
See! he clasps the hand
Of a lady young and wild.

With images by Walter Crane, and verse by his daughter Beatrice, this illustrated series of poems (ca. 1899) personifies the months of the year: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/crane-months

Happy New Year's Eve! Europe has been marking the change of ...

2025-12-31T12:46:15Z

Happy New Year's Eve! Europe has been marking the change of year with pyrotechnics since at least the 16th century. @simon_werrett looks at how artists have represented fireworks displays through the centuries: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/picturing-pyrotechnics #Fireworks #NewYearsEve

Top 10 of this year's most read pieces — no.7: our post on ...

2025-12-29T15:15:59Z

Top 10 of this year's most read pieces — no.7: our post on the playful, radical photos by the couple Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg — subversive visions of gender and sexuality in early 1900s Norway: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/berg-and-hoeg/

(Full Top 10 here: https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/12/top-10-most-read-pieces-from-2025/)

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Dashiell Hammett's The ...

2025-12-29T00:02:03Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.

More info behind window 28 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

Invent Monopoly, do not collect $200... Lizzie Maggie's ...

2025-12-27T17:45:58Z

Invent Monopoly, do not collect $200...

Lizzie Maggie's "Landlord's Game" and how an anti-capitalist board game invented by a woman became an uber-capitalist game that profited a man: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-landlords-game/

A whale and three fish sitting down to a formal dinner of Russian ...

2025-12-26T20:48:20Z

A whale and three fish sitting down to a formal dinner of Russian sailors, in a propaganda cartoon created by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), during the Russo-Japanese war (1904-5). View more from this superb series of prints here: https://buff.ly/2w0DK1S

Santa snoozing... From a 1908 issue of “The Suburbanite: A ...

2025-12-25T17:46:35Z

Santa snoozing...

From a 1908 issue of “The Suburbanite: A Monthly Magazine for Those Who Are and Those Who Ought to Be Interested in Suburban Homes”. https://twitter.com/PublicDomainRev/status/1474693415271030785/photo/1

Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal, a Christmas tale about 2 ...

2025-12-24T12:46:52Z

Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal, a Christmas tale about 2 children who get lost in the blinding snow, loved by WG Sebald, Hannah Arendt, Thomas Mann + WH Auden (who called it a "beautiful parable about the relation of people to places, of man to nature") https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/rock-crystal-adalbert-stifter

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Stella Benson's The ...

2025-12-24T00:02:38Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Stella Benson's The Far-Away Bride.

More info behind window 23 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

#OnThisDay in 1931, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley died from ...

2025-12-23T12:45:54Z

#OnThisDay in 1931, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley died from pneumonia contracted after walking home in a snowstorm. In 1885, the self-educated farmer from Vermont, using a homemade camera, became the first person to photograph a snow crystal: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-snowflake-man-of-vermont #otd

Published by the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company in ...

2025-12-20T17:47:05Z

Published by the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company in 1917, this little book's pages are entirely blank. More on it here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/why-women-should-not-vote

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Agatha Christie's The ...

2025-12-20T00:01:38Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage.

More info behind window 19 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) remains the ...

2025-12-18T17:46:19Z

L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) remains the most popular of the Oz books — not least of all because it’s the only one illustrated by W. W. Denslow. See the wonderful illustrations, and more on Denslow's eventful life, here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/w-w-denslow-illustrations-wonderful-wizard-of-oz-1900

Entering the public domain in 2026, in countries with a "life ...

2025-12-18T12:48:26Z

Entering the public domain in 2026, in countries with a "life + 70yr" copyright: The works of Thomas Mann.

More info behind window 18 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

Clarence Leroy Andrews, “The Father of the Glaciers”, 1902. ...

2025-12-16T17:47:09Z

Clarence Leroy Andrews, “The Father of the Glaciers”, 1902.

One of more than forty photographs of snowmen, spanning almost a century from 1854 to 1950, featured in our latest post: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/photographs-of-snowmen

Pages from a wonderful Italian book of proverbs made by the ...

2025-12-15T15:18:12Z

Pages from a wonderful Italian book of proverbs made by the engraver and painter Giuseppe Maria Mitelli (1634–1718). More here: http://buff.ly/2uKnDmK

Just 3 days left of our fundraiser! Become a Friend of the PDR ...

2025-12-14T20:45:35Z

Just 3 days left of our fundraiser! Become a Friend of the PDR before midnight on Dec 17th to get our latest postcard pack themed on ATTENTION. Other Friend perks include 15% off our prints. (One-off donations also very welcome!). More details here: https://publicdomainreview.org/support

Edgar Allan Poe was big into code cracking. He once challenged ...

2025-12-13T20:46:17Z

Edgar Allan Poe was big into code cracking. He once challenged readers of a Philadelphia paper to stump him with coded messages, deciphering dozens before having to “swear off” cryptograms forever. More on how code factors into his stories here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/edgar-allan-poes-the-gold-bug-1843

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Geoffrey Dennis' The ...

2025-12-12T00:01:04Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Geoffrey Dennis' The End of the World.

More info behind window 11 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Evelyn Waugh's Vile ...

2025-12-11T00:01:57Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies.

More info behind window 10 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

Pissing at the moon. One of Bruegel the Elder’s Twelve Proverbs ...

2025-12-10T20:48:02Z

Pissing at the moon.

One of Bruegel the Elder’s Twelve Proverbs (1558), painted on serving plates. After consuming the sweet offered, diners would flip the plates and muse over the imparted wisdom. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/bruegel-twelve-proverbs/

Kenneth Gross on the unique vision of innocence at play in Paul ...

2025-12-09T17:47:06Z

Kenneth Gross on the unique vision of innocence at play in Paul Klee's puppets, and the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/of-angel-and-puppet #longreads #paulklee

Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds, 1871.⠀ ⠀ One of ...

2025-12-08T20:46:37Z

Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds, 1871.⠀
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One of several hummingbird / orchid paintings by Martin Johnson Heade. This and a couple of other Heade works available as prints in our online shop here: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints/artist/martin-johnson-heade

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Hermann Hesse's ...

2025-12-07T08:01:06Z

Entering the US public domain in 2026: Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund.

More info behind window 7 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

Harry Macdonough (tenor) and Joseph Belmont (bird song) perform ...

2025-12-06T20:47:58Z

Harry Macdonough (tenor) and Joseph Belmont (bird song) perform Reginald De Koven's "Robin Redbreast" in 1907: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/robin-redbreast-1907

Happy #StNicholasDay! Born in Patara (in what is now Turkey), the ...

2025-12-06T15:16:09Z

Happy #StNicholasDay! Born in Patara (in what is now Turkey), the saint known for his secret gift-giving became over time the inspiration for today's figure of Santa Claus. See the visual journey undertaken in our "Pictorial History of Santa Claus" — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-pictorial-history-of-santa-claus

Published by Nonesuch Press in 1924, these Genesis-inspired ...

2025-12-03T17:47:55Z

Published by Nonesuch Press in 1924, these Genesis-inspired woodcuts by Paul Nash depict the creation of the world as a jerky, frightening cataclysm: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/paul-nash-genesis/

Entering the public domain in 2026, in countries with a ...

2025-12-03T08:01:00Z

Entering the public domain in 2026, in countries with a "life+70 yrs" copyright term: The works of Albert Einstein.

More info behind window 3 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026

Front cover to The Cubies’ ABC, an alphabet book published in ...

2025-12-02T12:45:57Z

Front cover to The Cubies’ ABC, an alphabet book published in 1913 devoted to a satirical takedown of Impressionists, Cubists, Futurists, and all other pretenders to the crown of Art. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-cubies-abc-1913

Between 1905 and 1911, the sheet music covers of Gotham-Attucks ...

2025-12-01T15:17:42Z

Between 1905 and 1911, the sheet music covers of Gotham-Attucks Co. — a song-publisher managed by some of the most famous Black writers and performers of the day — revolutionised how Black popular music was shown to the public: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/gotham-attucks/ #BlackHistoryMonth

The bloody throes of a boar hunt as a medieval fortress rises ...

2025-12-01T12:46:36Z

The bloody throes of a boar hunt as a medieval fortress rises like derelict tower blocks in the distance? Must be the festive month of December! The last entry in the Labors of the Months section from the Très Riches Heures manuscript, 15th century: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/labors-of-the-months-from-the-tres-riches-heures

Frederic Edwin Church, Aurora Borealis, 1865. Buy as a print ...

2025-11-25T20:46:47Z

Frederic Edwin Church, Aurora Borealis, 1865.

Buy as a print here: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/aurora-borealis-church/

More images of Aurora Borealis in our post “Firelight Flickering on the Ceiling of the World” https://buff.ly/38dxgft

Over 150 yrs ago, George Perkins Marsh urged his readers to ...

2025-11-24T12:45:48Z

Over 150 yrs ago, George Perkins Marsh urged his readers to consider the disastrous environmental effects of deforestation, over-mining, and other human actions. Read more about this remarkable thinker and his extraordinary book, Man and Nature (1864) https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/man-and-nature-1864

From a triptych known as “Cats for the 53 Stations of the ...

2025-11-23T20:46:13Z

From a triptych known as “Cats for the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (ca. 1847) — a spoof of the popular Japanese prints subject depicting the Edo to Kyoto coastal road.
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Available as a print from our online shop — https://publicdomainreview.org/product/cats-for-the-stations-of-the-tokaido-road #caturday

To raise money for the project we sell beautiful prints through ...

2025-11-23T17:46:16Z

To raise money for the project we sell beautiful prints through our online shop. Superb archival quality. Unframed or framed ready to hang. Explore our collection of 900+ images here: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints

And see our gift cards here: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/gift-cards/

Adorn your body and coffee in PDR goodness!!! We’ve just added ...

2025-11-20T17:54:00Z

Adorn your body and coffee in PDR goodness!!!
We’ve just added 8 new T-shirts (now 100% organic cotton) and 13 new mugs to our online shop.

T-shirts: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/t-shirts/
Mugs: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/mugs/

Plate from M. E. Descourtilz’s Atlas des Champignons (1827), a ...

2025-11-20T15:16:05Z

Plate from M. E. Descourtilz’s Atlas des Champignons (1827), a delightful series of colour lithographs of mushrooms, divided into those that are edible, poisonous and “suspect” — https://publicdomainreview.org/coll.../atlas-des-champignons

Triptych by Kawanabe Kyōsai depicting a battle of frogs, 1864. ...

2025-11-19T20:48:42Z

Triptych by Kawanabe Kyōsai depicting a battle of frogs, 1864.
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Kyōsai is considered both Japan’s first political caricaturist and one of the first authors of a manga magazine (Eshunbun Nipponchi).
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Prints to buy here: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints/artist/kawanabe-kyosai

One of the first books to be banned and burnt in the New World ...

2025-11-19T12:46:57Z

One of the first books to be banned and burnt in the New World was by an ancestor of the author Thomas Pynchon. More in our essay by Daniel Crown “The Price of Suffering”: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-price-of-suffering-william-pynchon-and-the-meritorious-price-of-our-redemption

Illustration by Ivan Bilibin for an 1899 edition of the Russian ...

2025-11-18T20:46:05Z

Illustration by Ivan Bilibin for an 1899 edition of the Russian fairytale Vasilisa the Beautiful.

One of two Bilibin illustrations from the tale available to buy as prints from our online shop — https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints/artist/ivan-bilibin

Throughout his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, Marcel ...

2025-11-18T17:45:49Z

Throughout his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, Marcel #Proust (who died #onthisday in 1922) would time and again turn to the visual arts. Explore here the artworks he mentions including paintings by Giotto, Botticelli and Poussin: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/paintings-in-proust-vol-1-swann-s-way #OTD

Centuries ahead of its time, Giovanni Battista Bracelli's ...

2025-11-17T17:47:48Z

Centuries ahead of its time, Giovanni Battista Bracelli's "Bizzarie di Varie Figure" (1624) depicts figures made from a range of objects, mostly abstract — cubes, rings, squares — but also such things as rackets, screws, and braided hair.

More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/bracelli-s-bizzarie-di-varie-figure-1624

Cards from Etteilla’s “Livre de Thot” Tarot, published ...

2025-11-13T20:46:42Z

Cards from Etteilla’s “Livre de Thot” Tarot, published around the time of the French Revolution.

More on this beautiful and beguiling creation in our latest post: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/etteilla-thot

Landscapes of the Western Front, 1914–1918 — A century after ...

2025-11-11T17:47:14Z

Landscapes of the Western Front, 1914–1918 — A century after their strategic function has passed, these official British army intelligence photographs offer an unusual and haunting portrait of the front: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/landscapes-of-the-western-front-1914-1918 #RemembranceDay #RemembranceDay2022 #ArmisticeDay

#Onthisday in 1918, just days before end of #WW1, French poet ...

2025-11-09T12:46:47Z

#Onthisday in 1918, just days before end of #WW1, French poet Apollinaire (weakened by a shrapnel wound) died in the Spanish flu epidemic. Later that year Calligrammes: Poems of Peace & War was published, a collection of his concrete/visual poems https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/apollinaire-s-calligrammes-1918 #OTD

The Cyclops, by François Desprez, 1562. ⠀⠀ Available as a ...

2025-11-03T20:46:55Z

The Cyclops, by François Desprez, 1562.
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Available as a print from our shop here: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints/artist/francois-desprez/

All the saints. From the Hours of Louis de Laval, France ca. ...

2025-11-01T17:47:01Z

All the saints.

From the Hours of Louis de Laval, France ca. 1480.

Who ate all the pumpkins? The Hajikkaki (はぢっかき). More ...

2025-11-01T12:46:58Z

Who ate all the pumpkins?

The Hajikkaki (はぢっかき).

More Japanese monsters from the Bakemono Zukushi scroll (18th–19th century) here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-bakemono-zukushi-monster-scroll-18th-19th-century

This Halloween week, a devilish dive into our archives to unearth ...

2025-10-29T19:32:15Z

This Halloween week, a devilish dive into our archives to unearth some supernatural treats: including woodcut witches, Babylonian spells, Japanese ghosts, and much much more...
https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/10/halloween-reader-2025/

Some of the many wonderful shapeshifting "monsters" from ...

2025-10-29T17:47:37Z

Some of the many wonderful shapeshifting "monsters" from Japanese folklore featured on a painted scroll known as the Bakemono zukushi (18th or 19th century). See more here of its ghoulish delights here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-bakemono-zukushi-monster-scroll-18th-19th-century

Spectropia; or, Surprising Spectral Illusions (1865), a wonderful ...

2025-10-29T15:16:55Z

Spectropia; or, Surprising Spectral Illusions (1865), a wonderful book of Victorian hi-tech ghost conjuring which allows the reader to summon, as the sub-title proclaims, “ghosts everywhere and of any colour”. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/spectropia-or-surprising-spectral-illusions-1865?utm_content=buffer0970c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer