The working class undergirds everything in this cartoon of capitalist society.
What allowed occultism to blossom in the United States at the turn of the 20th century? Linotype machines, cheap pulp paper, and newly improved postal networks. Allan Johnson investigates the forgotten history and (still living) world of mail-order magic.
Lantern slide of man battling bug.
An early contribution to drug literature, in which a man came to be fashioned out of wood.
Announcing an exciting new book series!
A modernist adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe. One of the first avant-garde films from America.
The creator of WNYC's Public Song Project on creativity, copyright, and the public domain.
As populations flocked to city centres in the 19th century, church cemeteries began to overflow with the dead. Roger Luckhurst exhumes the history of this period, when anatomists fuelled a body-snatching trade led by "resurrection men" and reformers sought alternatives to the toxic urban graveyards and their pestilent fumes.
Marvels, wonders, and monstrosities: something between a medieval bestiary and a scientific treatise on birth defects.
One of the most elaborate works of literary insult ever written.
Moneymaking caricatures by a teenage Monet, before he turned to Impressionism.
In early modern Europe, around the time when lenses began to bring the world (and heavens) into newfound focus, patients started appearing in medical records with a particular ailment: a firm belief that they were made of glass. Tamara Sanderson investigates the source and manifestation of this delusion, and finds a psychological idiom that once carried the weight of what could otherwise not be said.
"Tall-tale" or "exaggeration" postcards illustrating the bounties of California.
A utopian novel where men are no longer necessary.
Illustrations of Javanese wayang kulit puppets with vivid colour and gilding.
Does the flâneur, that curiously modern figure who wanders metropolitan streets, have a political consciousness? For Franz Hessel — author of Spazieren in Berlin, "a memorization while strolling" that Walter Benjamin called "thoroughly epic" — the answer seemed to be no. Paul Sullivan explores Hessel's perambulations through Berlin and the achievements and limitations of his vision.
Unruly steeds from King Mu's mythology, cavorting across a silk scroll.
A bestselling 18th-century cookbook, containing the first recipe for curry in English.
A wondrous illuminated manuscript, which gathers and illustrates the marvels of the world and beyond.
Observations of "snow flowers" made by microscope in Edo-era Japan.
Taking dictation, revising manuscripts, typing copies, literary amanuenses often labour for little compensation and even less recognition. Christine Jacobson explores the neglected efforts of women like Theodora Bosanquet, Véra Nabokov, and Valerie Eliot, who — through their work as typists, editors, and champions — had a profound impact on modern literature.
A forgotten bridge between Spiritualism and UFO encounters.
A WWII propaganda film narrated as an "auto"-biography
Before the attention economy consumed our lives, "pursuit tests" devised by the US military coupled man to machine with the aim of assessing focus under pressure. D. Graham Burnett explores these devices for evaluating aviators, finding a pre-history of the laboratory research that has relentlessly worked to slice and dice the attentional powers of human beings.
Etchings of birds in a somewhat theatrical style.
Slides from twenty years of lecturing about the workings of the universe and the fate of the soul.
The memoirs of an aristocratic man revolutionised into an anarchist communist.
Each January 1st is Public Domain Day, when a new crop of works have their copyrights expire and become free to share and reuse for any purpose. Here's our highlights for 2026.
From sublime spheres to hungry cats, a rundown of the ten most read of what we published this year.
In mid-19th century Italy, two eccentric aristocrats set forth on parallel projects: constructing ostentatious castles in a Moorish Revival style. Iván Moure Pazos tours the psychedelic chambers of Rochetta Mattei, optimised for electrohomeopathic healing, and Castello di Sammezzano, an immersive, orientalist fever dream.
Still lifes by the artist who seemed to bridge expressionism with the baroque.
Illustrations of Abū Zayd and his adventures in double meaning.
First cloud taxonomer and a poem by Goethe.
Our End-of-Year Fundraiser is launched, and the new postcards theme will be Attention.
Bizarre sweet treats that resemble human and animal forms.
French lithographs of the Eiffel Tower and its environs, in the style of Japanese woodblock prints.
In the 17th century, emanating from Antwerp, a new genre of artwork came on the scene: paintings of paintings, works populated by a lush array of meta-images. From its origins in picturing private curiosity cabinets to its later use in documenting increasingly public collections, Thea Applebaum Licht charts the course of this alluring aesthetic tradition.
A past vision of the future. Domestic utopia? Or sanitised hell?
Adorn your body and coffee in PDR goodness! We've just added 8 new T-shirts and 13 new mugs to our online shop.
In 1899, Charles Godfrey Leland published Aradia, "the gospel of the witches", containing a goddess-orientated creation and saviour narrative, purported to descend from an ancient, hermetic tradition of witchcraft in Italy. A. D. Manns explores this text via an enchanting conjecture: that the writer, medium, and witch Roma Lister played a pivotal role in the formation of both Aradia and, therefore, a new form of paganism called Wicca.
The recommended cut-off dates to order from our shop by to ensure delivery in time for Dec 25th.
Selections from an artist whose phantasmagoric works defined an era.
Photographs from a costume ball featuring fairytale fables.
This Halloween week, a devilish dive into our archives to unearth some supernatural treats...
A novel about a woman who throws off the yoke of patriarchy to become a witch.
Of all the senses cultivated throughout the 19th century, it was the sense of hearing that experienced the most dramatic transformation, as the science of sound underwent rapid advancement. Lucas Thompson delves into a particular genre of popular acoustics primers aimed at children and amateurs alike, which reveal the pedagogical, ludic, and transcendental strivings of Victorian society.
A medical tract on the health effects of burying oneself alive in mud.
Dioramas avant la lettre that depict local life in Suriname.
