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Experiments and Observations in a Heated Room (1774)

Oct 21, 2014

In 1774 and 1775 the British physician and scientist Charles Blagden conducted a series of experiments concerned with exploring the effects on the human body of extremely high temperatures, "air heated to a much higher degree than it was formerly thought any living creature could bear". In what equated to something akin to a "super-sauna", Blagden and his co-experimenters (including a dog) subjected themselves to enormously hot temperatures. Beginning at a modest 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), by the 1775 session they progressed to temperatures upward of a whopping 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius). Not surprisingly the air was at times quite literally scorching, and a full cladding of clothing was mostly worn to protect their skin, though Blagden did experiment one time being in the room naked from the waist up with only a suspended cloth protecting him from the rays of the hot irons. Among his many observations, in his latter 1775 report to the Royal Society, Blagden became the first to explicitly recognise the role of perspiration in thermoregulation, seeing that the body temperatures of both the heat-subjected humans and heat-subjected dog were significantly lower than the air they were exposed to. The dog endured a temperature of 236 degrees Fahrenheit (113 degrees Celsius) for a full hour, with seemingly little distress, and recording a body temperature of only 110 Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) - higher than a dog's normal body temperature, but significantly cooler than the room. In reality the dog's temperature was probably lower by a few degrees, as Blagden acknowledged he had a bit of trouble taking the measurement. In any case, such a difference in body and room temperature was an important one. Fearing the reliability of his thermometers, Blagden thought up a control for this thermo-regulating tendency of living bodies which he'd observed - a fat juicy steak. As he explained in his Royal Society report:
To prove that there was no fallacy in the degree of heat shewn by the thermometer, but that the air which we breathed was capable of producing all the well-known effects of such an heat on inanimate matter, we put some eggs and a beef-steak upon a tin frame, placed near the standard thermometer, and farther distant from the cockle than from the wall of the room. In about twenty minutes the eggs were taken out, roasted quite hard; and in forty-seven minutes the steak was not only dressed, but almost dry. Another beef-steak was rather overdone in thirty-three minutes. In the evening, when the heat was still greater, we laid a third beef-steak in the same place : and as it had now been observed, that the effect of the heated air was much increased by putting it in motion, we blew upon the steak with a pair of bellows, which produced a visible change on its surface, and seemed to hasten the dressing; the greatest part of it was found pretty well done in thirteen minutes.


text:
17 Numbered Lists from History

Feb 4, 2015

OR"17 numbered lists that will restore your faith in humanity, specifically in its ability to make numbered lists."1. 7 types of drunkardFrom pages 52 to 60 of The Anatomy of Drunkenness (1834) by Robert MacnishScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.2. 33 instances of premature intermentFrom pages 19 to 82 of The Danger of Premature Internment (1816) by Joseph TaylorScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.3. A total of 79 imagined artefacts (split up into three lists of 20, 34, and 25)From Museum Clausum (1652) by Thomas BrowneScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.4. 25 stages from courtship to marriageFrom a set of stereographs held by the Harper Stereograph Collection of the Boston Public LibraryScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.5. 197 exhibits at a turn-of-the-century Madam Tussaud'sFrom Catalogue of Napoleon Relics, Pictures and Other Works of Art and Curiosities (1901) compiled by W.WheelerScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.6. 18 accounts of taking Laughing Gas in 1799From pages 497 to 532 of Researches, chemical and philosophical chiefly concerning nitrous oxide, or diphlogisticated nitrous air, and its respiration (1800) by Humphry DavyScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.7. The 47 sins of Isaac NewtonFrom a transcription of Newton's notebook from 1662, known as the Fitzwilliam ManuscriptScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.8. 114 proved plans to save a busy man timeFrom 114 proved plans to save a busy man time; tested plans for making every minute count--ways to keep work free from interruption--how to put your office and desk in effective time-saving trim--methods that help to speed up routine (1918) by A.W. Shaw Company Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.9. 12 ways of committing suicide (of lighter tone than it may sound).From pages 21 to 23 of Our Home Counselor: A Practical Cyclopedia for Daily Use (1873) by L.W. YaggyScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.10. 68 designs for a tower in LondonFrom Descriptive illustrated catalogue of the sixty-eight competitive designs for the great tower for London (1890) compiled and edited by Fred. C. Lynde for the Tower CompanyScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.11. 5 classes of dreams according to MacrobiusFrom page 5 of Lord Byron's Dreambook (1886) by the Serial Leaflet Publishing Company Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.12. 100 types of marriageFrom pages 221 to 226 of The Sexual Life of our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization (1909), by Iwan Bloch, translated by M. Eden PaulScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.13. 9 types of newspaper adverts with a sexual purposeFrom pages 722 to 728 of The Sexual Life of our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization (1909), by Iwan Bloch, translated by M. Eden PaulScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.14. 29 letters regarding the education of the "learned pig"From The expositor or, Many mysteries unravelled (1805) by William Frederic PinchbeckScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.15. 13 features of spontaneous human combustionFrom pages 188 and 189 of The Anatomy of Drunkenness (1834) by Robert MacnishScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.16. 28 sundry little accomplishments as regards to politenessFrom pages 57 to 71 of Principles of Politeness, and of Knowing the World (1786) by Lord ChesterfieldScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.17. 162 recorded sightings of sea serpents from 1522 - 1890From pages 102 to 379 of The Great Sea-serpent: An historical and critical treatise (1892) by A. C. Oudemans (or condensed on pages 485 to 494)Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.A numbered list of the sources for the images featured above in the numbered list of historical numbered listsMerry Making on the Regent's Birthday (1812) by George Cruikshank / 2. The Premature Burial (1854) by Antoine Joseph Wiertz. / 3. Engraving Dell'Historia Naturale (1599) by Ferrante Imperato / 4. See source above / 5. See source above / 6. Detail from a satirical print from 1830 / 7. Detail from Sir Isaac Newton (1726), mezzotint by J. MacArdell after E. Seeman / 8. See source above / 9. Painting by Christian Gross, c.1752 / 10. See source above / 11. The Orangerie;—or—the Dutch Cupid reposing after the fatigues of Planting (1726) by James Gilray / 12. Illustration from The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (1882) / 13. The Poem by Federico Andreotti / 14. The Wonderful Pig (1785) by Thomas Rowlandson / 15. Detail from Fire (1566) by Giuseppe Arcimboldo / 16. Detail from A Club of Gentlemen (ca.1730) by Joseph Highmore / 17. See source above
OR"17 numbered lists that will restore your faith in humanity, specifically in its ability to make numbered lists."1. 7 types of drunkardFrom pages 52 to 60 of The Anatomy of Drunkenness (1834) by Robert MacnishScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.2. 33 instances of premature intermentFrom pages 19 to 82 of The Danger of Premature Internment (1816) by Joseph TaylorScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.3. A total of 79 imagined artefacts (split up into three lists of 20, 34, and 25)From Museum Clausum (1652) by Thomas BrowneScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.4. 25 stages from courtship to marriageFrom a set of stereographs held by the Harper Stereograph Collection of the Boston Public LibraryScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.5. 197 exhibits at a turn-of-the-century Madam Tussaud'sFrom Catalogue of Napoleon Relics, Pictures and Other Works of Art and Curiosities (1901) compiled by W.WheelerScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.6. 18 accounts of taking Laughing Gas in 1799From pages 497 to 532 of Researches, chemical and philosophical chiefly concerning nitrous oxide, or diphlogisticated nitrous air, and its respiration (1800) by Humphry DavyScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.7. The 47 sins of Isaac NewtonFrom a transcription of Newton's notebook from 1662, known as the Fitzwilliam ManuscriptScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.8. 114 proved plans to save a busy man timeFrom 114 proved plans to save a busy man time; tested plans for making every minute count--ways to keep work free from interruption--how to put your office and desk in effective time-saving trim--methods that help to speed up routine (1918) by A.W. Shaw Company Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.9. 12 ways of committing suicide (of lighter tone than it may sound).From pages 21 to 23 of Our Home Counselor: A Practical Cyclopedia for Daily Use (1873) by L.W. YaggyScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.10. 68 designs for a tower in LondonFrom Descriptive illustrated catalogue of the sixty-eight competitive designs for the great tower for London (1890) compiled and edited by Fred. C. Lynde for the Tower CompanyScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.11. 5 classes of dreams according to MacrobiusFrom page 5 of Lord Byron's Dreambook (1886) by the Serial Leaflet Publishing Company Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.12. 100 types of marriageFrom pages 221 to 226 of The Sexual Life of our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization (1909), by Iwan Bloch, translated by M. Eden PaulScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.13. 9 types of newspaper adverts with a sexual purposeFrom pages 722 to 728 of The Sexual Life of our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization (1909), by Iwan Bloch, translated by M. Eden PaulScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.14. 29 letters regarding the education of the "learned pig"From The expositor or, Many mysteries unravelled (1805) by William Frederic PinchbeckScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.15. 13 features of spontaneous human combustionFrom pages 188 and 189 of The Anatomy of Drunkenness (1834) by Robert MacnishScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.16. 28 sundry little accomplishments as regards to politenessFrom pages 57 to 71 of Principles of Politeness, and of Knowing the World (1786) by Lord ChesterfieldScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.17. 162 recorded sightings of sea serpents from 1522 - 1890From pages 102 to 379 of The Great Sea-serpent: An historical and critical treatise (1892) by A. C. Oudemans (or condensed on pages 485 to 494)Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.A numbered list of the sources for the images featured above in the numbered list of historical numbered listsMerry Making on the Regent's Birthday (1812) by George Cruikshank / 2. The Premature Burial (1854) by Antoine Joseph Wiertz. / 3. Engraving Dell'Historia Naturale (1599) by Ferrante Imperato / 4. See source above / 5. See source above / 6. Detail from a satirical print from 1830 / 7. Detail from Sir Isaac Newton (1726), mezzotint by J. MacArdell after E. Seeman / 8. See source above / 9. Painting by Christian Gross, c.1752 / 10. See source above / 11. The Orangerie;—or—the Dutch Cupid reposing after the fatigues of Planting (1726) by James Gilray / 12. Illustration from The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (1882) / 13. The Poem by Federico Andreotti / 14. The Wonderful Pig (1785) by Thomas Rowlandson / 15. Detail from Fire (1566) by Giuseppe Arcimboldo / 16. Detail from A Club of Gentlemen (ca.1730) by Joseph Highmore / 17. See source above
OR

"17 numbered lists that will restore your faith in humanity, specifically in its ability to make numbered lists."

1. 7 types of drunkard
From pages 52 to 60 of The Anatomy of Drunkenness (1834) by Robert Macnish

2. 33 instances of premature interment
From pages 19 to 82 of The Danger of Premature Internment (1816) by Joseph Taylor

3. A total of 79 imagined artefacts (split up into three lists of 20, 34, and 25)
From Museum Clausum (1652) by Thomas Browne

4. 25 stages from courtship to marriage
From a set of stereographs held by the Harper Stereograph Collection of the Boston Public Library

5. 197 exhibits at a turn-of-the-century Madam Tussaud's
From Catalogue of Napoleon Relics, Pictures and Other Works of Art and Curiosities (1901) compiled by W.Wheeler

6. 18 accounts of taking Laughing Gas in 1799
From pages 497 to 532 of Researches, chemical and philosophical chiefly concerning nitrous oxide, or diphlogisticated nitrous air, and its respiration (1800) by Humphry Davy

7. The 47 sins of Isaac Newton
From a transcription of Newton's notebook from 1662, known as the Fitzwilliam Manuscript

8. 114 proved plans to save a busy man time
From 114 proved plans to save a busy man time; tested plans for making every minute count--ways to keep work free from interruption--how to put your office and desk in effective time-saving trim--methods that help to speed up routine (1918) by A.W. Shaw Company

9. 12 ways of committing suicide (of lighter tone than it may sound).
From pages 21 to 23 of Our Home Counselor: A Practical Cyclopedia for Daily Use (1873) by L.W. Yaggy

10. 68 designs for a tower in London
From Descriptive illustrated catalogue of the sixty-eight competitive designs for the great tower for London (1890) compiled and edited by Fred. C. Lynde for the Tower Company

11. 5 classes of dreams according to Macrobius
From page 5 of Lord Byron's Dreambook (1886) by the Serial Leaflet Publishing Company

12. 100 types of marriage
From pages 221 to 226 of The Sexual Life of our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization (1909), by Iwan Bloch, translated by M. Eden Paul

13. 9 types of newspaper adverts with a sexual purpose
From pages 722 to 728 of The Sexual Life of our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization (1909), by Iwan Bloch, translated by M. Eden Paul

14. 29 letters regarding the education of the "learned pig"
From The expositor or, Many mysteries unravelled (1805) by William Frederic Pinchbeck

15. 13 features of spontaneous human combustion
From pages 188 and 189 of The Anatomy of Drunkenness (1834) by Robert Macnish

16. 28 sundry little accomplishments as regards to politeness
From pages 57 to 71 of Principles of Politeness, and of Knowing the World (1786) by Lord Chesterfield

17. 162 recorded sightings of sea serpents from 1522 - 1890
From pages 102 to 379 of The Great Sea-serpent: An historical and critical treatise (1892) by A. C. Oudemans (or condensed on pages 485 to 494)

A numbered list of the sources for the images featured above in the numbered list of historical numbered lists

Merry Making on the Regent's Birthday (1812) by George Cruikshank / 2. The Premature Burial (1854) by Antoine Joseph Wiertz. / 3. Engraving Dell'Historia Naturale (1599) by Ferrante Imperato / 4. See source above / 5. See source above / 6. Detail from a satirical print from 1830 / 7. Detail from Sir Isaac Newton (1726), mezzotint by J. MacArdell after E. Seeman / 8. See source above / 9. Painting by Christian Gross, c.1752 / 10. See source above / 11. The Orangerie;—or—the Dutch Cupid reposing after the fatigues of Planting (1726) by James Gilray / 12. Illustration from The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (1882) / 13. The Poem by Federico Andreotti / 14. The Wonderful Pig (1785) by Thomas Rowlandson / 15. Detail from Fire (1566) by

Giuseppe Arcimboldo / 16. Detail from A Club of Gentlemen (ca.1730) by Joseph Highmore / 17. See source above

source: public-domain-review

type: collection

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Hoefnagel’s Guide to Constructing the Letters (ca. 1595)

Jan 22, 2015

Joris Hoefnagel (1542–1601) was a pivotal figure in the history of Dutch art, playing an important role both in the latter stages of the Flemish illumination tradition and the birth of the new genre of still life. In the last decade of his life Hoefnagel was appointed court artist to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, and it was in this time that he appended Georg Bocskay's Model Book of Calligraphy, of thirty years previous, with his own beautifully exquisite Guide to the Construction of Letters, examples from which are shown below. In each he surrounds the typographic diagram with a colourful array of symbolically charged motifs and, for some, an excerpt from the Bible which begins with the letter of focus. See the each image's description on the Getty site for further commentary.


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Winners of the GIF IT UP Competition

Dec 19, 2014

The Digital Public Library of America and DigitalNZ held the GIF IT UP competition over the course of Autumn 2014: a contest to find the best animated GIFs reusing public domain and openly licensed digital video, images, text, and other material available via the DPLA and DigitalNZ search portals.
The judges were the Smithsonian Magazine and your very own Public Domain Review. Here are the winners we picked...
ANIMALS
Lillie Le Dorre, from Wellington, New Zealand, wins this category with her precocious typing dog. Source material courtesy Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga.
PLANES, TRAINS, AND OTHER TRANSPORT
Darren Cole, from the United States, wins this category with his moving (and smoking!) monowheel patent. Source material courtesy the National Archives and Records Administration.
NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Richard Naples, from Washington, DC is awarded the winner for his elegantly fluttering butterflies. Source material courtesy Smithsonian Libraries via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
YOUR HOMETOWN, STATE OR PROVINCE
Jason Varone’s mesmerizing map overlay of Brooklyn wins this category. Source material courtesy the US Government Printing Office.
GIF USING A STEREOSCOPIC IMAGE
Ron Leunissen in the Netherlands takes this award away with this stereoscopic image of the Penna. Cavalry at Newport News, en route to Porto Rico. Source material courtesy Boston Public Library.
WORLD WAR I
The Othmer Library in Philadelphia wins this award with their wagging WWI enlistment dog. Source material courtesy the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources via the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center.
OPEN
Nono Burling takes away the award for the open category with this romantically dancing couple, created from the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge. Source material courtesy University Southern California Libraries.
PEOPLE’S CHOICE
Jessica Pyburn’s beautiful snowflake animation is the winner of the People’s Choice Award for the GIF with the most Tumblr ‘notes’, 381 in total. Source material courtesy Smithsonian Institution.
GIF IT UP: FULL GALLERY
To browse all of the GIF IT UP entries, visit the competition gallery


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Speech of Satan to his Legions... (with Gestures)

Feb 5, 2015

A series of diagrams from A System of Elocution, with Special Reference to Gesture, to the Treatment of Stammering, and Defective Articulation (1846) by Andrew Comstock. To illustrate the proper gestures to adopt when public speaking Comstock has a figure enact out a section from Milton's Paradise Lost, in which Satan, expelled from Heaven and finding himself in Hell, delivers a speech to awaken his legions.
A physician and professor of elocution at the Vocal and Polyglot Gymnasium in Philadelphia, Comstock was hugely influential in the burgeoning science of elocution in mid-nineteenth-century America. Amongst other boasts, he invented his own phonetic alphabet to improve the speech of his pupils, an alphabet which was also used to transcribe documents, including the New Testament.


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Flowers of the Sky

Sep 24, 2014

Depictions spanning almost a whole millennium - in chronological order - of comets, meteors, meteorites and shooting stars.


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Youssef Tage - Six Traditional Syrian Songs (1940)

Feb 10, 2015

Six traditional songs from Syria performed by Youssef Tage in a series of recordings believed to be made in the late 1930s through early 1940s.


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By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1909)

Oct 23, 2014

Featured above is an early recording from 1909, by Columbia Quartette, of this popular 20th-century Tin Pan Alley song made famous by Doris Day in the film of the same name released in 1953. The music was written by Gus Edwards and the lyrics by Edward Madden in 1909. Also featured below are versions by Ada Jones from 1912, Fats Waller from 1942, Al Jolson from 1949, and the Doris Day rendition from the musical film.
Ada Jones rendition, 1912
Fats Waller rendition, 1942
Al Jolson rendition, 1949
Doris Day rendition, 1953


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One Got Fat: Bicycle Safety (1963)

Oct 30, 2014

An extremely strange and, one presumes unintentionally, creepy bicycle safety film from Interlude Films. The starring children are wearing monkey masks, which seems to draw some distinction between what silly monkeys would do and what wise and safety-conscious humans would (and should) do, as regards to riding one's bike. The masks, however, lend a slightly Clockwork Orange-esque tone to proceedings, compounded by the fact that as their short nine-block long journey to a picnic progresses, each child is picked off one by one (into death? permanent paralysis?) by various accidents - until only one is left. This lone picnicker is the safety-conscious Orville, who is left with everyone's lunches (hence the "One Got Fat" of the title), and who is revealed at the very end to be the only one not wearing a mask. The odd film is narrated brilliantly throughout by Edward Everett Horton, with his slightly ominous catchphrase: "Right? Right".


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Poems of Shelley Illustrated by Robert Anning Bell (1902)

Jan 27, 2015

A turn-of-the-century edition of Shelley's best known verse, both epic and short, adorned throughout with gorgeous illustrations by the English artist and designer Robert Anning Bell. Almost a decade after the book was published Bell would go onto become head of design at Glasgow School of Art, and from 1918 to 1924 professor of design at the Royal College of Art, during which time he also worked on a series of mosaics for the Palace of Westminster. The book also boasts an introduction by Sir Walter Raleigh (though not he of swashbuckling fame). On the elaboration of Shelley's poetry with illustrations Raleigh comments:
There is no great poet who offers a more hopeless task to the illustrator, if by illustration is understood a drawing that helps to the understanding of the poem. But Art begets Art, and there is surely nothing illicit about an embroidery of fair designs suggested by a reading of the poems. If they be found superfluous or irrelevant, they must share that condemnation with the preface.


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Humorous Phases Of Funny Faces (1906)

Jan 29, 2015

A short animation created by Anglo-American film producer James Stuart Blackton which proved hugely influential in the development of animated films in America. The film comes six years after his equally groundbreaking The Enchanted Drawing and is regarded by film historians as the first animated film to be recorded on standard picture film.


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The Algonquin Legends of New England (1884)

Sep 18, 2014

A brilliant collection of stories from the folklore tradition of the Algonquin (Algonquian, Algonkin) peoples of North America, in particular, as the subtitle tells us, of the "Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot tribes". The collection presented in the book is a result of the collecting efforts of folklorist Charles G. Leland and from Rev. Silas T. Rand, a Canadian Baptist clergyman who was the first to record the legend of Glooskap. It is this legend, with its many chapters, which takes up the majority of the book. The central character is a giant of a divinity named Glooskap, who "grows to a more appalling greatness than Thor or Odin in his battles", and whose name literally means Liar, because it is said that when he left earth he promised to return but has never done so. In addition to Glooskap, a large proportion of the book is dedicated to "The Merry Tales of Lox, the Mischief-Maker", a character, as Leland explains in his introduction, who ranges "from Punch to Satan, passing through the stages of an Indian Mephistopheles and the Norse Loki, who appears to have been his true progenitor". Also, Throughout the book are scattered a set of wonderful illustrations (some featured below), presumably copied from tribe members themselves, though no information is given on this.


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Napoleon at St Helena (1855)

Oct 30, 2014

An illustrated compilation of "interesting anecdotes and remarkable conversations of the Emperor", Napoléon Bonaparte, during his time on Saint Helena, the island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (a whopping 1870 km from the west coast of Africa) to which he was exiled after his surrender to the British on July 15, 1815. As the preface makes clear, the book's editor John S. C. Abbott was a big big fan of the "le petit caporal":
The Emperor Napoleon, by almost universal consent, is pronounced to be, intellectually, the most illustrious of mankind. Even his bitterest enemies are compelled to do homage to the universality and the grandeur of his genius. Lamartine declares him to be "the greatest of the creations of God." ... The genius of Napoleon is astounding. All branches of human knowledge seemed alike familiar to his gigantic mind.
In the book Abbott hopes to "take the reader to St. Helena, and to introduce him to the humble apartment of the Emperor", to "give him a seat in the arm-chair, by the side of the illustrious sufferer reclining upon the sofa", and to "lead him to accompany the Emperor in his walk among the blackened rocks, and thus to listen to the glowing utterances of the imperial sage."
After his exile (and indeed before) Napoleon garnered much support from the English speaking world. There was sympathy for him in the British Parliament, particularly from Lord Holland who delivered a speech that demanded the prisoner be treated with no unnecessary harshness. Lord Cochrane was also a big supporter and, involved in the struggles for independence in Chile and Brazil, wanted to rescue Napoleon and help him set up a new empire in South America. There were reportedly many plots to rescue him from his captivity on St Helena. One such scheme originated in Texas, where exiled soldiers from the Grande Armée wanted a resurrection of the Napoleonic Empire in America. Another plan was said to have involved an ambitious submarine-based bust led by the infamous British smuggler Tom Johnson, who claimed to have been offered £40,000 to carry out the plan. Needless to say none were successful, and on May 5, 1821, Napoleon died. The official death certificate stated stomach cancer, though many believed the real cause was the harsh treatment he received for years in the hands of his custodian and "gaoler", Hudson Lowe, who moved Napoleon in December 1816 to the damp and dilapidated Longwood House. Some even say he was poisoned by arsenic, though a recent medical study implied that the original diagnosis of stomach cancer was most likely correct.


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The Relaxed Wife (1957)

Mar 24, 2015

Our nostalgia for the 1950s is tested with this strange and unnerving promotional film for the tranquilliser "Atarax", in which a husband plagued by stress brought on by work and noisy children, is helped by his relaxed wife of the title. With her calming influence he learns not to focus on the problems of others or to worry about the rest of the world - "Let the world take care of its own worries. You'll help yourself most by concentrating on your own affairs". Named after ataraxia, the Greek word for relaxation, the tranquilliser is advertised through such rhyming lines as:
Today, medical science recognizes,that some folks aren't helped by relaxing exercises.In cases of difficult tension, and nervous apprehension,doctors are now prescribing an ataraxic medicine.It makes those who fear they're about to quit,feel like they're ready to begin,bidding their darkened spirits goodbye,for the calming peace of a cloudless sky.Of all the states throughout this nation,the happiest by far is the state of relaxation.There'll be fewer breakdowns and insomniacs,when more of us have learned to be relaxed.We'll be free to relish the joys of life,no longer tense over daily worries and strife.
And it is medication, such as the Pfizer-produced Atarax, which is seen as the key to this panacea of relaxation. Although many think of anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants as a rather modern way of life, housewives of the 1950s were frequent users of such drugs, the first and most popular being Miltown, named after the New Jersey hamlet in which it was first manufactured in 1955. According to Newsweek, just two years after it was first made available, "Americans had filled 36 million prescriptions for Miltown, more than a billion pills had been manufactured and these so-called 'peace pills' accounted for one third of all prescriptions."


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The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and her Dog (1819)

Mar 12, 2015

The figure of "Old Mother Hubbard" first appeared in print in 1805, the creation of Sarah Catherine Martin (1768-1826), the sister of Thomas Byam Martin, a British Royal Navy officer. The inspiration for the rhyme was the housekeeper of Martin's sister, the rather wonderfully named Mrs Pollexfen Bastard, and it was primarily written to entertain the guests staying at her house in Devonshire. It tells of an old lady and her dog who indulges in a wide array of human activities, such as playing the flute, reading the newspaper, and dressing up in clothes. The version of the book featured above was published in 1819 (by J. Harris, the same publishers who brought out the original 1805 version), complete with a set of delightful coloured illustration, one for each verse. This edition was followed a year later by The Comic Adventures of Old Dame Trot and her Cat (1820), featured below, which seems to be another version of the tale involving similar characters, with Mother Hubbard transforming into Dame Trot and the dog being joined by a cat, the latter taking centre stage. Here, the familiar gender roles of the time are clearly discernible: the male dog being rather mischievous and troublesome, while the female cat helps with various chores around the house.


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The Art of Dreams

Apr 29, 2015

Half our dayes wee passe in the shadowe of the earth, and the brother of death exacteth a third part of our lives.Thomas Browne, On Dreams
...night after night, with calm incuriousness we open the door into that ghostly underworld, and hold insane revels with fantastic spectres, weep burning tears for empty griefs, babble with foolish laughter at witless jests, stain our souls with useless crime, or fly with freezing blood from the grasp of an unnamed dread ; and, with the morning, saunter serenely back from these wild adventures into the warm precincts of the cheerful day, unmoved, unstartled, and forgetting.Elizabeth Bisland, Dreams and their Mysteries
Dreams have long proved a fertile ground for human creativity and expression, and no less so than in the visual arts, giving rise to some of its most arresting images. In addition to the many and varied dreams so important to religion and myth there has emerged, in the last few centuries since the birth of Romanticism, an exploration of the more personal dream-world. Indeed, with its link to the unconscious, the form has perhaps proved the perfect vehicle for those artists looking to surface that which lies submerged - desire, guilt, fear, ambition - to bring to light the truth the waking mind keeps hid.
No doubt, also, artists have been attracted to the challenge of giving form to something so visually intangible as a dream, a challenge taken up in many ways through the centuries. More often than not there appears the sleeping body itself, with the dream element incorporated in a variety of ways. Common is for the dream sequence to appear in a totally separate part of the image, as if projected on the walls of the sleeping mind: often in the midst of that familiar floating cloud, but also as emerging from nearby objects or events of the day (see the Toyokuni image below) . Also common, particularly in the depiction of nightmares, is for the figures of the dream to simply appear as though in the room with the sleeper, often directly upon the body itself (see the Fuseli below). With the advent of photography, and the potential of double exposures, we see also a different way of trying to capture that intangibility of the dream image. With both the Grandville and Redon images featured, and the work of the Surrealists they anticipate, we see a different approach entirely, one which looks past the sleeper to focus solely on the imagery of the dream itself, and in the process perhaps giving a more true impression of the strangeness and otherworldliness which so often characterises the dream experience.


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In Search of the Impossible: The Perfect English Rabbit
Text by Adam Green
Apr 2, 2015

The image above details the aesthetic requirements for achieving the "Ideal English Rabbit", the benchmark of perfect markings for a particular breed of rabbit first developed in the middle of the nineteenth century. The diagram reproduces one of a series of eight images created by the English artist Ernest George Wippell for Fur and Feather magazine in 1893, two years after the founding of the English Rabbit Club (though some sources give the date for Wippell's drawings as 1903). In 1927, Fur and Feather published the colour print pictured below in their "ideal breed" series.
The portrait came to represent the breed’s ideal, and has fuelled a whole legion of rabbit breeders in their obsessive quest to mimic it exactly in live bunny form, complete with a "butterfly smut" nose, particular sweep of 33 spots across the flank (symmetrical on both sides), and the distinctive black stripe down the spine. Due to the ways and wiles of evolutionary genetics, so shot through with chance and "noise" as it is, the task is pretty much impossible. As Steve Jones of UCL comments in the highly recommended BBC radio programme "Roger's Rabbits", it is "a quest without any possibility of success". This, however, does not stop the breeders of the English rabbit from trying, with hundreds gathering at regular exhibitions to compete against each other in their attempts to hone in on the perfect ideal. Famous breeder of English rabbits, Fred Haslam, commented on the process, "Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible."

author: Adam Green


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The Dream-God, or A Singular Evolvement of Thought in Sleep (1873)

Feb 18, 2015

A short and curious work recounting an extremely vivid and elaborate vision while under the influence of morphine. The tale seems to be based on a true story, an experience of the author John Cunningham who explains in a "Letter to My Friends" that "Although requested by a number of you at various times to write this condensed narrative of an event in my life, associated with much misfortune, sadness and suffering which have continued for some years, it was not until during a lonely period of quietude at Brooklyn, N.Y., in the summer of 1872, that I made the effort." The tale, told in the third person, begins with a short preface telling how Cunningham came to tell his story:
The peculiar and startling effect of morphine on a person unaccustomed to its administration, was happily illustrated in the instance of a gentleman to whom, under its influence, (about three eighths of a grain,) the dream to be related occurred. This individual, (a South Carolinian resident on a plantation,) a few years ago, had lately received a severe and extensive burn, which confined him to his bed six months. An allusion by him in a casual conversation in the city of New York recently to the eventful dream and its circumstances, brought out a solicitation to him to write its narrative, which in substance he here gives.
Cunningham's narrative then beings proper:
The sleep was serene, the mind active, and the dream promptly and vividly supervened. A being in the form of a handsome and matured man, full of esprit, in a white and easy-fitting garment, with bright, broad and sweeping wings coming out from each side of his back below the shoulders, appeared to the patient at his bedside, and announced to him that he was the Spirit of Morphine, of a heavenly and immortal nature, and that he had come to carry him on an aerial voyage over many parts of the world, to show him many attractive regions and things, to introduce him to various races, royal personages, distinguished celebrities, etc.
The morphine-addled "Sleeper", as he is referred to throughout, then proceeds to accompany the "Spirit" on a long and winding flight witnessing a range of strange and marvellous natural phenomena - such as a window at the North-pole down into the fiery core, and 500 foot primordial lizards - as well as a whole host of spiritual and philosophical encounters with the likes of Confucius, Cleopatra, and Zoroaster.


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Photograph Collection of a 19th-Century Sexologist
Text by Adam Green
Apr 14, 2015

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902) was a German-Austrian psychiatrist and early sexologist, whose book Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie, first published in 1886 (and translated into English in 1892), became a great influence within the emerging study of sexology. The book, which Krafft-Ebing continued to expand throughout twelve editions until his death, is a scientific study of sexual deviation consisting of over 200 case studies. Intended for the use of physicians, psychiatrists and judges (and written partly in Latin in order to discourage the general public from reading it), the book explores fetishism, sadism, masochism and homosexuality, as well as nymphomania, necrophilia, and incest. For Krafft-Ebing, any desire for sex unrelated to procreation was a deviation from the heterosexual norm, making, for example, gay sex a "perversion" of the sexual instinct.
The photographs featured here are part of Krafft-Ebing’s personal collection. It is unknown where they came from or who the people featured in the photographs are, although, at least the first two photographs appear to be unusual specimens of the "French postcard" which was so popular in the late-19th century. One assumes the photographs are linked to Krafft-Ebing’s studies, but as for how or where they were produced and procured is a mystery.


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America, a Personification (ca. 1590)

Mar 10, 2015

A late 16th-century Dutch print depicting a female personification of the continent America, engraved by Flemish designer and engraver Adriaen Collaert after a design by Maerten de Vos. The print is part of a series of four depicting each of the continents (minus Antarctica), though of the four it is the only to show scenes of violence and conquest, perhaps not surprising since America's "discovery" by Europeans would have been relatively fresh in the memory. Pictured riding atop an armadillo, there is something sad, and indeed ominous, about the direction of America's gaze — turned away from the traditional life of hunting (and roasting human meat) depicted on the left, toward the mass bloodshed and slaughter brought about by the arrival of the Spanish depicted on the right.


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The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)
Text by Adam Green
Mar 31, 2015

The Cynic's Word Book is a satirical dictionary written by American journalist and author Ambrose Bierce (1842-ca.1914), a man whose savage wit earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce". The targets for Bierce's mockery are wide-ranging: from lawyers ("one skilled in circumvention of the law") to the institution of marriage ("a household consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two"); from Christians ("one who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin), to the very idea of the self ("ALONE, adj. In bad company").
Although it was perhaps the most popular, Bierce's satirical dictionary was certainly not the first. That accolade most probably could go to the 14th-century Persian Nizam-od-Din Obayd-i Zakani. It was in Bierce's time, however, that the idea really took off. In 1911, five years after Bierce's book was first published, Le Dictionnaire des idées reçues (The Dictionary of Received Ideas) by Gustave Flaubert was post-humously released. Compiled from a series of notes written in the 1870s, it isn't clear whether Flaubert ever intended the "dictionary" for publication, but the idea of a spoof encyclopedia had fascinated him all his life.
As for Bierce's effort, it had its seed in a series of newspaper and magazine columns. First appearing in 1881 in the weekly magazine The Wasp, of which he was the editor-in-chief, Bierce worked on the dictionary, which was then called The Devil's Dictionary, between 1881–86, including 88 instalments, each consisting of 15–20 new definitions. When Bierce became an editor of The San Francisco Examiner in 1887, he introduced The Cynic's Dictionary, a continuation on the same theme (with the title changed due to the "the religious scruples" of the paper's owners). The dictionary was first reproduced in book form in 1906 under the title The Cynic's Word Book, and since 1911, expanded editions returning to its original title of The Devil's Dictionary.
Bierce also wrote about his experiences during the Civil War, publishing a collection of 26 short stories entitled Tales of Soldiers and Civilians in 1891. Bierce's death is a mystery: while traveling with rebel troops during the Mexican Revolution in 1913, he disappeared without a trace. His disappearance has become one of the most famous in American literary history.


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The Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake (1765)

Apr 15, 2015

These memoirs of the Anglo-American colonial officer Lieutenant Henry Timberlake focus on the last seven years of his life, and specifically his work as emissary to the Cherokee Indians, including a remarkable journey made in 1762 with three Cherokee leaders to London to meet King George III.
In 1760, relations between the British and the Cherokee people became hostile when several Cherokee chiefs were imprisoned and killed in South Carolina. A year later, Cherokee Chief Kanagatucko asked for peace and for an officer to accompany him home as a sign that the hostilities had ended. The man who volunteered for the job was Henry Timberlake. Having first traveled with Chief Kanagatucko to the town of Tomotley where he met Chief Ostenaco, he later arranged for Ostenaco and two other Cherokee leaders to travel to London in 1762 after Ostenaco expressed a wish to meet King George III. Timberlake describes a near cultural faux-pas between the two leaders:
They were struck with the youth, person and grandeur of his majesty, and conceived as great an opinion of his affability as of his power, the greatness of which may be seen on my telling them in what manner to behave; for finding Ostenaco preparing his pipe to smoke with his majesty, according to the Indian custom of declaring friendship, I told him he must neither offer to shake hands or smoke with the King, as it was an honour for the greatest of our nation to kiss his hand. You are in the right, says he, for he commands over all next to the Man above, and nobody is his equal.
He also tells of the Cherokee's encounter with British alcohol:
Once, in particular, one of the young Indians got extremely intoxicated, and committed several irregularities, that ought rather to be attributed to those that enticed them, than to the simple Indians, who drank only to please them. I cannot indeed cite sobriety as their characteristic; but this I can say, these excesses never happened at home.
The trip went well, and in 1764 the Cherokees again traveled to London with the hopes of appealing to the king to restrict colonists to east of the Appalachians as the settlers were encroaching on Cherokee land. However, this second trip was unsuccessful. The Cherokee were refused an audience and sent back in March 1765, with Timberlake remaining in London as he was arrested for failing to pay the bill for the lodging of himself and the Cherokees. Indeed, it was probably while he was incarcerated that Timberlake wrote these memoirs, which later became a valuable source of information regarding the Cherokee people and their beliefs and customs. Timberlake died the same year of publication, a brief newspaper obituary being glued opposite the title page in the copy featured above.


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Journey from Venice to Palestine, Mount Sinai and Egypt (ca. 1467)

Feb 24, 2015

Selected images from a beautifully illustrated account of a journey made from Italy to the Middle East. Although this book (known as Egerton 1900) was purported to reflect a journey made in 1465 by Gabriel Muffel, third son of the Nuremburg patrician Nicholas Muffel, the travelogue is, however, merely a German translation of an account of a journey made more than a century earlier. This actual journey was undertaken by the Franciscan friar Niccolo da Poggibonsi who visited the Holy Land in 1346-50, and wrote up his travels in the Italian book Libro d’oltramare. The work remained untranslated until Muffel got hold of it, also supplying it with 147 miniatures, a selection of which are presented below. The confusion doesn't stop there. Muffel's account was then translated back into Italian, printed at Bologna in 1500. Originally the author was ‘anonymous’ but the account was, in due course, recognised to be that of Niccolo da Poggibonsi, though it was not realised that it was in fact a translation of Muffel's translation of the original. This Bologna 1500 printing enjoyed a huge success with 26 editions being published before 1600. For more on this latter manuscript and how it relates to Egerton 1900 see this page on the British Library site.


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Account of an Extraordinary Fireball Bursting at Sea (1749)

Apr 28, 2015

An account given by a Mr. Chalmers, published in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, telling of a remarkable incident occurring out at sea. Mr Chalmers writes of how, in 1749, from the deck of the Montague as it sailed in the Mediterranean just north of Corsica, he saw a blue fireball rolling on the surface of the water and making its way towards the ship. As the crew lowered the sails and tried to avoid impact, the mysterious ball rose up and exploded, making a sound "as if Hundreds of Cannons had been fired at one time; and left so great a Smell of Brimstone, that the Ship seemed to be nothing but Sulphur". The ball left the main topmast of the ship shattered and tore the mainmast sail. Surprisingly, only five men were "knocked down" but one of them sustained burns from the explosion. It is unclear what caused the fireball or what it actually was.


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Kinetophone Actor Audition (ca. 1913)

Apr 21, 2015

This is the recording of the voice audition of Frank Lenord from around 1913, including  the reading of a letter as well as a short rendition of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech. The Kinetophone of the title refers to a combination of a phonograph and Kinetoscope, both of which were invented by Thomas Edison. While the phonograph could record and reproduce sound, the Kinetoscope was an early device for viewing films, though only one person at a time could watch the film through a viewer window on the device. The Kinetophone, invented in 1895, aimed to combine both picture and sound. The film could still only be viewed by one person, but a set of headphones connected to the machine made it possible to combine sound to the film, with different music tracks available. By 1913, the machine was able to project the film onto a screen with the phonograph placed separately in the room. However, the novelty was short lived, as the synchronisation of picture and sound did not always work and the sound quality was poor.


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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)

Feb 26, 2015

The very first motion picture filmed underwater, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1916 silent film adaptation of Jules Vernes' novel of the same name, as well as incorporating elements from his The Mysterious Island. Directed by Stuart Paton, the underwater scenes were not actually filmed using underwater cameras but rather a system of watertight tubes and mirrors which allowed the camera to shoot reflected images of underwater scenes staged in shallow sunlit waters. Made by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company (now Universal Pictures), not then known as a major motion picture studio, it was incredibly expensive to produce and, according Hal Erickson, put "the kibosh on any subsequent Verne adaptations for the next 12 years".


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Photographs of a Falling Cat (1894)
Text by Adam Green
Feb 17, 2015

Certain scientific circles of the nineteenth century were home to a rather unexpected preoccupation: the dropping of cats. While at university in Trinity College, Cambridge, James Clerk Maxwell, who would go onto become arguably the greatest theoretical physicist of the nineteenth century, was reportedly well known for the activity. In a letter to his wife reflecting on this reputation he'd earned, Maxwell wrote, "There is a tradition in Trinity that when I was here I discovered a method of throwing a cat so as not to light on its feet, and that I used to throw cats out of windows. I had to explain that the proper object of research was to find how quick the cat would turn round, and that the proper method was to let the cat drop on a table or bed from about two inches, and that even then the cat lights on her feet." He was not the only prominent scientist to be intrigued by the question of how cats, when falling from a height, seemingly were able to defy the laws of Newtonian physics and change motion in mid air to land on their feet. At around the same time, the eminent mathematician George Stokes was also prone to a spot of "cat-turning". As his daughter relates in a 1907 memoir: "He was much interested, as also was Prof. Clerk Maxwell about the same time, in cat-turning, a word invented to describe the way in which a cat manages to fall upon her feet if you hold her by the four feet and drop her, back downwards, close to the floor."
Despite the many falling cats, neither Maxwell nor Stokes made much headway in their investigations. It wasn't until some decades later, with the invention of chronophotography (which allowed many photographs to be taken in quick succession), that a more rigorous study could be applied beyond the limitations of the human eye. The man to do it was the French scientist and photographer Étienne-Jules Marey who in 1894 created a series of images from which he was able to make some important deductions. The images pictured below, captured at 12 frames per second, debunked the idea that the cat was using the dropper's hand as a fulcrum in order to begin the motion of turning at the beginning of the fall. Rather, the pictures showed that the cat had no rotational motion at the start of its descent and so was somehow acquiring angular momentum while in free-fall. Marey published these pictures, and his investigations, in an 1894 issue of Comptes Rendus, with a summary of his findings published in the journal Nature in the same year. The latter summarises Marey's thoughts as follows:
M. Marey thinks that it is the inertia of its own mass that the cat uses to right itself. The torsion couple which produces the action of the muscles of the vertebra acts at first on the forelegs, which have a very small motion of inertia on account of the front feet being foreshortened and pressed against the neck. The hind legs, however, being stretched out and almost perpendicular to the axis of the body, possesses a moment of inertia which opposes motion in the opposite direction to that which the torsion couple tends to produce. In the second phase of the action, the attitude of the feet is reversed, and it is the inertia of the forepart that furnishes a fulcrum for the rotation of the rear.
In a rather humorous turn the author of the article also states that "The expression of offended dignity shown by the cat at the end of the first series indicates a want of interest in scientific investigation."
Despite Marey's seemingly clear photographic evidence, many physicists continued to believe that the cat was using the dropper's hand as a fulcrum. It would be more than 70 years later until the riddle was finally solved, in Kane and Scher's 1969 paper "A dynamical explanation of the falling cat phenomenon". For more info on how the cat manages it see the great Wikipedia entries under "Falling Cat Problem" and "Cat Righting Reflex" (both of which include a handy diagram) and also this video from Smarter Everyday.


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Nekrokēdeia or The Art of Embalming (1705)

Mar 19, 2015

Written and published by Thomas Greenhill, an 18th-century surgeon, Nekrokēdeia is a collection of all things related to death and burial, focusing in particular on the history and art of embalming. Greenhill believed that embalming was a subject just as important as anatomy or surgery and advocated for its practice, discussing it from a medical as well as a religious perspective. The book is divided into three letters, all addressed to a specific doctor: the first to Charles Bernard, Serjeant Surgeon to Queen Anne, the second to John Lawson, the former president of the Royal College of Physicians and the third to Hans Sloane, secretary to the Royal Society (whose vast collection was to become the founding collection of the British Museum). As is perhaps to be expected a large proportion of the book is devoted to exploring the practise of mummification in Ancient Egypt, though it is an exploration long and meandering with many deviations, such as the section on the temperament of the Egyptian people whom he states are "hot and dry" and of a "chearful Temper, yet delight much in an idle and lazy kind of Life, being immoderate votaries to Venus". Large sections of the book, as Greenhill himself admits, are borrowed from previous works, as are the illustrations, in particular from Athanasius Kircher's work on Ancient Egypt from 50 years earlier. Greenhill's book was originally meant to consist of three parts, but only the first was published and this by subscription.


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English Book-Plates, Ancient and Modern (1893)

Mar 5, 2015

A marvellous book all about the bookplate, or ex-libris, the small and often highly decorative label pasted into a book, most usually on the inside front cover, to indicate its owner. Although the earliest known marks of ownership of books or documents dates from the latter years of Ancient Egypt, and people would mark ownership in the Middle Ages with simple inscriptions, it wasn't until the advent of printing in 15th-century Germany that we see the development of bookplates in their more modern decorative form. One of the best known of these early German examples is the "gift-plate" of Hildebrand Brandenburg of Biberach to the Monastery of Buxheim (c. 1480), showing an angel holding a shield of arms. Many famous artists of the day got involved in these early designs, including Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach and Hans Holbein. By the late 17th and early 18th centuries the phenomenon had spread to France and England, and by the late 19th century, with the publication of A Guide to the Study of Book-Plates (Ex-Libris) by Lord de Tabley, the study and collection of bookplates on their own terms began to gain in popularity, with societies being founded and dedicated journals published. As to why one might need a bookplate, the introduction to this volume explains it rather eloquently:
And now concerning the reasons for a custom which may be said to be almost as old as the printed book itself, and which is anything but on the wane at the present time. — Books are not consumable goods, but chattels intended to endure; they are at all times invested with definite intrinsic value, often with fanciful preciousness. But, to fulfil their destiny, they must consort with many people, and, during the inevitable changing of hands, may easily lose their way back to the rightful owner. This dread fate may overtake them even without any intermeddling of the traditional malice prepense of book-borrowers, for, after all, almost all books have numerous brethren singularly like unto themselves. And, having once lost their way, they might lightly find themselves established in new colonies, were it not for the safeguard of some unmistakable mark of ownership.
Thus it may be said that the primary object of an ex-libris, is precautionary against loss, by accident or through the negligence of borrowers ; (whether a book-plate has ever fulfilled that purpose is, however, an open question still). A second, closely connected with the first, is to secure the identification of a valued tome as part of a collection. A third and universal object of the book-plate is, as I have said before, to gratify the sense of possession by giving some kind of personal character to chattels which in themselves are only specimens of more or less copious batches, or (by a curious, though intelligible reversal of the same idea) by giving this character to a work which the present owner believes to be almost unique of its kind.
From this peculiar feeling, difficult to express, but which can be recalled no doubt by all book-lovers, this desire to invest books with some more "personal" character, depends the custom noticeable in so many ex-libris ancient and modern, of dovetailing with the plain statement of ownership some more or less original "sentiment," or some bibliophilic motto which denotes a prevailing taste or bias of thought in the owner.
Scooting back to the very first pages will reveal that this book itself, rather appropriately, has a bookplate, of a certain J Balfour Paul, as well as one from the University of California where the book still resides.


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Guido Gialdini whistling Arditi’s The Kiss (1908)

Apr 1, 2015

Guido Gialdini was a "whistler" known for his ability to whistle any tune he heard. Born in Germany and actually named Kurt Abramowitsch, Gialdini became famous through various recordings made both in Europe and the United States. The song performed here by Gialdini is Il Bacio or The Kiss, composed by the Italian conductor and composer Luigi Arditi (1822-1903).
Not much is known of Gialdini's life or indeed his death but, being of Jewish decent, it is thought that he died in a concentration camp during the Second World War.


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Illustrations from a Teenage Holiday Journal (1821)

Apr 23, 2015

Illustrations from the teenage diary of Mary Browne (1807-1833), which was published in 1905, more than 80 years after it was written. Born in England in 1807, Mary was 14-years-old when she wrote the diary which tells of her experiences travelling down to London and on to France with her family during the summer of 1821. Like a true teenager, she was not impressed with what she saw, writing:
About Calais was the ugliest country without exception I ever beheld; there was scarcely a tree to be seen, no hedgerows, no pretty cottages, everything looked dirty and miserable; there was a great deal of sand, and the country looked exactly like a desert; I thought that if this was a specimen of France, it was certainly a most charming place!
Indeed she seemed to have generally a negative view of all things French:
The French children are old-fashioned, dull, grave, and ugly: like little old women in their appearance. The babies are wrapt up in swaddling-clothes like mummies, and they wear queer little cotton hats. The nurses carry them very carefully hanging on their arms; they say that nursing them, or tossing them about, makes them mad.
Despite her antipathy she produced a wonderful range of studies of the people she encountered, as well as various situations, such as a village fête and a puppet show. There are also some impressive illustrations of soldiers which she saw at the funeral procession of Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon-Penthièvre, Duchess of Orléans. She also managed to witness a visit from the King at Versailles, remarking that "The King is a very fat, contented-looking man."
Little is known about Mary's short life (she died when just 26 years old). The introduction, written by her niece Euphemia Stewart Browne, tells of how she was a keen naturalist and later turned her artistic talents to painting "an exquisite collection of butterflies and moths" which was left unfinished at her untimely death.


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The Photographs of Hugo Simberg

Mar 18, 2015

In June 2014, the Finnish National Gallery released digitisations of almost a thousand photographs taken by the Finnish painter Hugo Simberg (1873-1917), offering a fascinating insight into the artist's working practices and an intimate glimpse into daily life with family and friends.
A key figure of the symbolist movement, Simberg was known for his unique paintings blending realistic portraiture, landscape, and fantasy, with odd figures often featuring. Devils and trolls are often depicted, as is Death who takes the form of a skeleton wearing a black robe, most famously in The Garden of Death, a theme that Simberg worked on in various forms between 1896-1906.
After beginning his art studies in Vyborg, Simberg later became a pupil of Akseli Gallen-Kallela, one of the biggest names in Finnish art. Although the public found Simberg’s symbolistic and naïve depictions of supernatural beings odd, they gradually warmed up to him, and he was commissioned to decorate St John’s Church in Tampere, now Tampere Cathedral. One of the frescoes found in the church is a reproduction of The Garden of Death (1896) while a continuous fresco, The Garland Bearers (1906), depicts twelve young boys carrying a garland of roses, representing the disciples of Christ carrying the vine of life. Simberg also painted a red-winged serpent of Paradise on the ceiling, sparking off considerable protest, and as late as 1946, the bishop of Tampere Diocese proposed that it be removed.
The collection from which the photographs below have been selected, all taken between 1891 and 1917, are part of the Hugo Simberg archive belonging to The Finnish National Gallery's Archive Collections. In many of the photographs we see the models from which his famous works - such as The Wounded Angel and The Garland Bearers - are based, as well as Simberg at work on his controversial snake fresco. The collection also offers a unique insight into the personal life of the painter, showing him at play with his family and friends, in addition to revealing him to be a talented photographer in his own right. The photographs are available as a mass download in zip format through the Finnish National Gallery website, or in browseable form over at Flickr The Commons.


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The Westinghouse Works (1904)

Apr 30, 2015

These films are part of the Westinghouse Works Collection which contains 21 films depicting various views of the Westinghouse companies. Founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse, the Westinghouse Electric Company (later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation) produced turbines and coils for electricity while also being the rivaling company of Thomas Edison's General Electric. Notable workers included inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla and Bertha Lamme, who started working for Westinghouse in 1893 after being the first woman to receive a degree in engineering from the Ohio State University. The films, which were made for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904 feature footage from the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, the Electric and Manufacturing Company, and the Machine Company, showing both male and female workers. It was common for female workers to be unmarried, and when Bertha Lamme married her supervisor Russell Feicht in 1905, she was forced to retire since company policy forbade them from working together.


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After London (1911)
Text by Adam Green
Apr 7, 2015

First published in 1885, Richard Jefferies' After London can be seen as one of the most important early examples of "post-apocalyptic fiction". The story tells of how London becomes a swampland after an unspecified natural disaster delivers England over to the mercy of nature. Divided into two parts, "The Relapse into Barbarism" recounts the fall of civilisation while the second longer section entitled "Wild England" follows Felix Aquila, the male protagonist, as he builds a canoe and explores more of the world around him. As an author, Jefferies was noted for his more everyday depiction of nature and rural life. The son of a Wiltshire farmer, he began his work as a reporter for the North Wiltshire Herald in 1866 and later found success through his articles written for the Pall Mall Gazette. Based on his childhood acquaintances and experiences, he wrote a series of essays called The Gamekeeper at Home (1878), followed by three more collections which were first published in the Pall Mall Gazette and then in book form, including Wild Life in a Southern County and The Amateur Poacher, both appearing in 1879, and Round About a Great Estate in 1880. He also published two children's books, Wood Magic (1881) and Bevis (1882), both of which feature a young boy named Bevis who can communicate with animals and inanimate parts of nature, such as the stream and wind.


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Tom Ennis - Irish Jigs, Reels, and Polkas (1917)

Mar 17, 2015

Irish Jigs Medley (1917)
Tom Ennis (with uncredited piano accompaniment) plays a medley of traditional Irish jigs in this recording made on April 7, 1917. The four tunes are "The Three Little Drummers", The Connachtman's Rambles", "The Joy of Life", and "Nancy Hynes".
Irish Reels - Medley No.6 (1917)
A medley of three traditional Irish reels - "The Maid That Left The County", "Drowsy Maggie", and "Around the World for Sport"
Irish Polkas (1922)
In a rare rendition of polkas on the pipes Tom Ennis is joined by John Gerrity.
Tom Ennis was the son of John Ennis, also an accomplished piper, who emigrated from Kildare to Nebraska to work on the construction of the railroads. Tom was born in 1888 in Nebraska but after John Ennis was offered a job in the Chicago Police Department, the entire Ennis family relocated. Taught by his father to play the pipes, Tom became the youngest member of Chicago’s Irish Fiddle Club in the early years of the 20th century. Tom moved to New York in his 20s where he made a living as a professional piper and founded one of the first Irish-American recording companies, for whom he commercially recorded in the 1910s and 20s. He also owned a music store during this same time at 59th Street and Columbus Circle in New York City (More info here).


text:
53 Stations of the Tōkaidō as Potted Landscapes (1848)

Mar 26, 2015

Connecting Edo (now known as Tokyo) to Kyoto, the Tōkaidō road was the most important of the "Five Routes" in Edo-period Japan. This coastal road and its fifty-three stations has been the subject of both art and literature, perhaps most famously depicted by the Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige in his The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, a series of ukiyo-e woodcut prints created in the 1830s. This book from the mid-19th century, Tokaido Gojusan-eki Hachiyama Edyu, presents a series of fifty-three prints created by a relatively obscure ukiyo-e artist named Utagawa Yoshishige, each illustration depicting a Tōkaidō station in the form of a potted landscape. The preface tells us that the illustrations are based on actual pieces constructed by the preface writer’s father, Kimura Tōsen. Creating the models in 1847, a year before publication, Tōsen commissioned Utagawa Yoshishige to make illustrations of each model for a book through which he could share them with the world, and (due to his modesty) asked his son to write the preface.
There are two main arts of the potted landscape in Japanese tradition - saikei and bonkei. Similar to the practice of bonsai, saikei is the art of creating tray landscapes, combining miniature trees with rocks and water as well as other vegetation, while bonkei is a permanent tray landscape in which no living materials are used. While saikei landscapes feature only scenes of nature, a bonkei can feature people or buildings, with mountains made out of rocks and sculptable materials such as papier-mâché. It seems that these landscapes created by Kimura Tōsen are the latter.
Although this copy of the book held by the USDA states the date publication as 1848, it is most likely a post-Edo reprint (post-1868) as the publisher’s location is given as Tokyo City, Kanda Ward — both terms from after the implementation of Meiji government.
Many thanks to Stephen M. Forrest, Senior Lecturer in Japanese Language and Literature at University of Massachusetts Amherst, for his help in translating the preface and offering other valuable information about the book.


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The Man With The Rubber Head (1902)

Apr 16, 2015

The Man With The Rubber Head, or L'Homme à la tête de Caoutchouc, is a French silent film from 1902 directed by Georges Méliès. It features a scientist (played by Méliès himself) who places a living copy of his own head on a table, attaches a pair of bellows to it, and begins to blow air into the head, making it swell like a balloon. The film is a classic example of Méliès mastery of early special effects. To create the illusion of a head which grows in size, he filmed himself moving toward a stationary camera and then superimposed this upon a static shot of the laboratory where the head ballooning experiment takes place.