public domain review
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The Noble Fish and the Man Who Loved Them
Nothing, in the opinion of a New Yorker, can exceed boiled sheep’shead served up at a sumptuous dinner. . . This noble fish . . . the feats of hooking and pulling him in, furnish abundant materials for the most…
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A Colorblind Canadian Chronicler in Connecticut
At the Public Domain Review, Abigail Walthausen looks at the work of Arthur Heming, a Canadian colorblind painter who lived in an artist colony in Connecticut.
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The Birds and the Bees and Aristotle
To many a browser upon a bookstall, the name Aristotle in the title meant—nudge nudge wink wink—a book about sex. For the Public Domain Review, Mary Fissell examines Aristotle’s Masterpiece, a 17th-century sex manual that made the ancient philosopher’s name a dirty…
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Machiavelli: Prince of Comedy
You could argue that Machiavelli’s entire worldview was comic, but comic in a peculiar way: ironic, wry, a little melancholy, punctuated by an earthy vulgarity that, these days, would get him thrown off a university faculty in a minute. The…
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The Sweet Sound of Cat Pianos
The Public Domain Review takes a trip through the world of imaginary musical instruments, including sound houses, steam-powered bands, and the infamous cat piano.
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The Mystery and Controversy of Lewis Carroll
In fact, as far as his daily life went, “Lewis Carroll” was a complete non-person. Charles was always known personally only by his real name, letters directed to the pseudonym were returned unanswered, and he would walk away if strangers…
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The Myth About Badgers
In the seventeenth century, country folk believed that the badger had legs on one side shorter than the other – the consensus was that the short legs were on the left. The Public Domain Review looks at Pseudodoxia Epidemica, a…
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How Street Lights Changed Literature
The Public Domain Review looks at how the introduction of street lights in 17th-century London forever changed literature.
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Frank Norris’s Early Cinematic Style
At The Public Domain Review, Henry Giardina examines how the then-recent invention of motion picture influenced Frank Norris’s novel McTeague and the development of naturalism.
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Paradise Lost and Scurvy Found
Sudden sounds, such as the report of a musket or a cannon, were well known to kill scorbutic sailors. Even pleasant stimuli such as a drink of fresh water, or a long-awaited taste of fruit, could provoke a seizure and…
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Forgotten Failures
For The Public Domain Review, Dane Kennedy looks at two accounts of European expeditions that undermined the popular Victorian view of African exploration.
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A Picture of Nothing
For the image to work…the viewer must not see the image for what it is – a black square. The viewer must understand the square as formlessness, and the black inside as neither a fullness nor an emptiness. This simple…