The Public Domain Review

Covers from Cerîde-i Adliye, a Turkish Law Journal (1924–26)

Legal infographics that reflect a Turkish nation in flux.

Jun 3, 2026

Animal, Vegetable, Lamb: The Zoophyte from Tartary

In the Middle Ages, rumours spread across Europe of a strange hybrid creature, half-animal, half-plant, known as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. A hoax based on fern rhizomes? A euphemism for culled fetal lambs? Or perhaps a medieval misapprehension of cotton? Thom Sliwowski traces the roots of this fabled zoophyte.

May 28, 2026

Harold A. Taylor’s Autochromes of California Flowers (early 20th century)

Photographs of flowers by an advocate of California’s beauty.

May 26, 2026

Sea Monsters Unmasked and Sea Fables Explained by Henry Lee (1883)

Pamphlets on sea beasts produced for the International Fisheries Exhibition of 1883.

Apr 15, 2025

Photographs of the Samaritan Passover on Mount Gerizim (1917)

Images from a ritual practised for 127 generations.

Apr 16, 2025

Oskar Kokoschka, Hermine Moos, and the Alma Mahler Doll

Photographs of the life-size doll that Kokoschka had made to resemble his ex-lover Alma Mahler.

Apr 22, 2025

“I Am Making the World My Confessor”: Mary MacLane, the Wild Woman from Butte

In 1902, a woman named Mary MacLane from Butte, Montana, became an international sensation after publishing a scandalous journal recording life at the age of 19. Rereading this often-forgotten debut, Hunter Dukes finds a voice that hungers for worldly experience, brims with bisexual longing, and rages against the injustices of youth.

Apr 23, 2025

Confessional Boxes: Tiny Cryptic #7

Seventh instalment in our series of extremely small and free-form cryptic crossword puzzles, themed on our latest essay.

Apr 23, 2025

Nikolai Agnivtsev’s Little Screw (1925)

A 1925 Soviet Children’s book about a little screw whose importance is overlooked.

Apr 30, 2025

Tangled Dürer: The Six Knots (ca. before 1521)

Woodcut knots likely inspired by Mamluk decorative metalwork.

May 6, 2025

A Popeless Situation: Now and Then #2

Papal elections begin, in 2025 and 1268.

Feather Tickler: Tiny Cryptic #8

Eighth instalment in our series of extremely small and free-form cryptic crossword puzzles, themed on our latest essay.

Mudpots and Fumaroles: Lithographs of Yellowstone’s Thermal Springs (1883)

Images gathered during a survey by Ferdinand V. Hayden, who was responsible for the designation of Yellowstone as a national park.

Warburg’s Werewolf: An Anamnesis

Aby Warburg spent his life finding forms that could hold their own against the flow of time. All the while, as Kevin Dann explores, he was churning on the brink of madness with the sense that he himself was changing — into a terrifying animal. What kind of history would a werewolf write?

As Bright as a Feather: Ostriches, Home Dyeing, and the Global Plume Trade

In the 19th century, dyed ostrich feathers were haute couture, adorning the hats and boas of fashionistas on both sides of the Atlantic. Whitney Rakich examines the far-reaching ostrich industry through a peculiar do-it-yourself-style book: Alexander Paul’s The Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer (1888), a text interleaved with richly colored specimens.

Charles Butler’s The Feminine Monarchie, or the History of Bees (1634 edition)

The earliest full-length work of apiculture published in English, which popularised the discovery that bee colonies have queens instead of kings.

May 13, 2025

Gilded Fish: Illustrations from Histoire naturelle des dorades de la Chine (1780)

Stunning illustrations from the first monograph on goldfish published in Europe.

May 15, 2025

In the Penal Colony: Now and Then #3

French overseas imprisonment, in 2025 and 1852.

“The Great Enigma of Our Times”: Henry George’s Poverty and Progress (1881 edition)

A landmark work of social reform — proposing a land value tax — that helped usher in the Progressive Era.

Old Tricks: Tiny Cryptic #9

Ninth instalment in our series of extremely small and free-form cryptic crossword puzzles, themed on our latest essay.

The Old, Old, Very Old Man: Thomas Parr and the Longevity Trade

As the story goes, Old Tom Parr was relatively healthy for being 152 until a visit to noxious, polluted London in 1635 cut his long life short. Katherine Harvey investigates the early modern claims surrounding this supercentarian and the fraudulent longevity business that became his namesake in the 19th century.

Bernard Sleigh’s Anciente Mappe of Fairyland (ca. 1920 edition)

A stunning six-foot-long map that joins the worlds of various myths and stories for the childhood adventurer.

May 28, 2025

Charles Davy’s Conjectural Observations on the Origin and Progress of Alphabetic Writing (1772)

A series of conjectures about the primal scene of writing.

Jun 3, 2025

Drawing on Tradition: Elena Izcue’s Peruvian Art in the School (1926)

A set of drawing workbooks embroiled in debates about the Indigenist aesthetic movement.

Jun 5, 2025

Under Construction: Tiny Cryptic #10

Tenth instalment in our series of extremely small and free-form cryptic crossword puzzles, themed on our latest essay.

Jun 5, 2025

Imagining an Idle Countess: George Wightwick’s The Palace of Architecture

In 1840, British architect George Wightwick published a world history of architecture in the Romantic mode, inviting readers to enter a vast garden where Buddhist iconography rubs shoulders with Greek temples and Egyptian pyramids gaze upon Gothic cathedrals. His intended audience? Idle women. Matthew Mullane revisits this visionary but ultimately unpopular text, revealing the legacy of attempts to gatekeep the realms of imagination and fantasy pertaining to the built environment.

Jun 5, 2025

Off with Their Heads: Illustrations of Blemmyes (ca. 1175–1724)

Depictions of the mythical creatures known as Blemmyes: humanoids whose eyes, nose, and mouth are embedded in their breast.

Jun 11, 2025

Strings Attached: Helen Haiman Joseph’s A Book of Marionettes (1920)

The first comprehensive history of marionette artistry in the English language.

Jun 12, 2025