Snowball Fights in Art (1400–1946)

What’s wondrous about browsing the images of snowball fights gathered here is how little changes across centuries and continents.

Little Switzerlands: Alpine Kitsch in England

Far from the treacherous peaks and ravines of Switzerland, Alpine cottages arose, unexpectedly, amid the hillocks and modest streams of 19th-century England. Seán Williams recovers the peculiar fad for “Little Switzerlands”, where the Romantic...

All Sound Recordings Prior to 1923 Will Enter the US Public Domain in 2022

Thanks to the Music Modernization Act passed by US Congress in 2018, all sound recordings prior to 1923 will have their copyrights expire in the US on January 1st.

Our New Countdown Calendar for Works Entering the Public Domain

A new section on the site dedicated to celebrating works entering the public domain.

*Odd Showers* (1870)

An odd little book about frogs and fishes raining down from the sky and the reasons why they do so.

The Launch of Our End-of-Year Fundraiser!

Our End-of-Year Fundraiser is launched, and the new postcards theme will be Ink.

*Clavis Artis* by “Zoroaster”

Alchemical images from a 17th- or 18th-century manuscript that claims to be much older: a direct translation from Zoroaster himself.

William Wells Brown, Wildcat Banker

A cottage industry, yes, but a barbershop bank? Ross Bullen plots how a story told by William Wells Brown — novelist, historian, playwright, physician, and escaped slave — circulated, first through his own works, and then abroad, as a parable of...

Joseph Perry’s Medical Illustrations of Miscarriage (1834)

Compiled over the course of roughly six years, Granville’s medical text, features 12 coloured plates by Joseph Perry.

Last Order Dates for Christmas 2021

The recommended cut-off dates to order from our shop by to ensure delivery in time for Dec 25th.

28 New Prints Up On Our Online Shop

New delights for your walls, including works by Blake, Grandville, Redon, Hiroshige, and lots of stunning Japanese firework illustrations.

Imaging Inscape: *The Human Soul* (1913)

Hippolyte Baraduc’s book recounts his invention of a photography-like process in which his subjects directly transmitted their soul’s vibrations onto a chemical plate.

Theresa Babb’s Photographs of Friendship (ca. 1898)

Theresa Babb's turn of the century photographs let us glimpse into a personal world of female friendship.

Reborn Into a New Form (1849)

A second life? To live again? Fyodor Dostoevsky survived the uncanny pantomime of his own execution to be “reborn into a new form”. Here Alex Christofi gives these very words a kind of second life, stitching primary source excerpts into a...

Laughter in the Time of Cholera

Political instability, popular unrest, and an impending pandemic? Welcome to France in the early 1830s. Vlad Solomon explores what made Parisiens laugh in a moment of crisis through the prism of a vaudeville play.

Aspirated Aspirations: Alfred Leach’s *The Letter H* (1880)

In *The Letter H*, Alfred Leach passionately defends the aspirated aitch in words like "herb".

“The Internet at its Utopian Best”: A Fabulous Feature on *The Public Domain Review* in the *TLS*

Frances Wilson review's our project for a feature in this week's Times Literary Supplement

Designs from Kimono Pattern Books (ca. 1902)

These designs capture a period of cultural change in Japan, when the kimono became increasingly associated with national mythmaking and tradition.

An Iconic Line: Claude Mellan’s *The Sudarium of Saint Veronica* (1649)

Mellan's pièce de résistance: an engraving of Christ incised with a single, spiralling line.

William Baillie-Grohman's *Sport in Art* (1913)

William Baillie-Grohman’s text on the art of hunting reproduces 243 illustrations and 400 years of arcane knowledge related to the pursuit of animals.