The Public Domain Review

Top #gardening tip: keep "ypericon" (St John's Wort) in your garden for optimal demon repelling. From Tractatus de Herbis, a northern Italian manuscript made to help apothecaries and physicians identify useful ingredients. More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/tra…

John Tresch on the mysteries and symmetries of Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym — publicdomainreview.org/essay/still-fa… #EdgarAllanPoe

In the prevailing anti-Catholic atmosphere of early-19th-century US, the publication of Maria Monk's revelations of nuns being forced to engage in sexual acts with priests became a sensation: publicdomainreview.org/collection/awf…

Born #onthisday in 1602, Athanasius Kircher. Read John Glassie's essay on the great polymath's pioneering and peculiar explorations into the bubonic plague — including discussions on "universal sperm": publicdomainreview.org/essay/athanasi… #otd

Illustration by Paul Krafft for the reverend William Schuler Harris’ Capital and Labor (1907), a treatise on the exploitation of workers by capitalism and the potential solutions in socialism. More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/cap… #mayday

#MayDay reading: "Get Thee to a Phalanstery: or, How Fourier Can Still Teach Us to Make Lemonade", @DominicPettman on Charles Fourier's bizarre and radical blueprint for a socialist utopia: publicdomainreview.org/essay/get-thee…

Emma Goldman addressing a rally at Union Square, New York, 1916. Read our essay on her unique brand of anarchism: publicdomainreview.org/essay/emma-gol… #MayDay

Happy #MayDay and #InternationalWorkersDay! This poster by Dutch artist Jan Toorop was for the Hague's 1898 National Woman’s Labour Exhibition, which had the goal to improve women's wages and working conditions. More posters from Toorop here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/the…

Pyramid of Capitalist System, issued by Nedeljkovich, Brashich, and Kuharich, and published by The International Pub. Co., 1911. More about the image in our latest post: publicdomainreview.org/collection/pyr…

How does one visualize history or chart time? Is it a line, moving forever outward in one direction? Or could it be a tetris-like grid, as proposed by the “Polish System”, which gained widespread popularity during the 19th century... publicdomainreview.org/collection/vis…

“Handy Mnemonics: The Five-Fingered Memory Machine” — @kensycoop explores the history of storing knowledge on the surface of fingers and palms: publicdomainreview.org/essay/handy-mn…

From Monuments anciens du Mexique (1866), a lithograph expertly executed by the artist, erotic publisher, explorer, and general enigma Jean-Frédéric de Waldeck — who died #onthisday in 1875. More about his life and controversial work here: publicdomainreview.org/essay/brief-en… #otd

From 1903 to 1907 Augustus Jansson produced more than 30 striking adverts for the Queen City Printing Ink Company, including the wonderful Ink Beasts Parade series, with its "Magenta Ponies" and "Orange-Yellow Ibexiaticus". More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/aug…

Reading for #InternationalDanceDay... @rkgar on the wonder that was Loie Fuller and her "serpentine dance": publicdomainreview.org/essay/loie-ful… #InternationalDanceDay2022

FINAL DAY to get 25% off the first books of our new PDR Press Minis series! Beautiful pocket-sized editions of public domain texts. Pre-sale ends today at midnight (PST). Order here: publicdomainreview.org/shop/pdr-press…

For #InternationalDanceDay — pages from a 1700 dance manual depicting a revolutionary dance notation system invented at the court of Louis XIV. More pages from the manual here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/dan…

“At length for hatching ripe he breaks the shell” — illustration from William Blake’s The Gates of Paradise (1787-93), created during a visionary period, an intensification of the eidetic images that he had seen throughout his life. More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/wil…

These scientific illustrations by Orra Hitchcock (1796–1863) — executed on poster-sized linen swaths and hung on classroom walls — are striking for their modern abstraction. More here in our post by @eayers0: publicdomainreview.org/collection/hit…

The Monster of Cracow. One of many strange marvels featured in a beautifully illuminated copy (made for Elizabeth I) of Pierre Boaistuau’s Histoires Prodigieuses. More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/his… (and prints in our shop too).

(Main image shows an archivist at the Prague Castle Archives, ca. 1940s.)

Extremely small man peruses one of our new Mini books... Now only ONE DAY left to get them at 25% discount — pre-sale ends tomorrow at midnight (PST): publicdomainreview.org/shop/pdr-press…