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…
Posts by tag
public domain review
40 posts
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.
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
How Street Lights Changed Literature
The Public Domain Review looks at how the introduction of street lights in 17th-century London forever changed literature.
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.
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…
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.
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…