Pictures and short extracts from Gems by the Way-side: An Offering of Purity and Truth by Mrs. L. G. Abell, author of “The Skillful Housewife,” and “Ladies’ Parlor Annual.”, New York, WIlliam Holdredge, 1850.

This little book has a mixture of goth poetry, moral tales and propagnda, short stories and the like.

Some of the copper-plate engravings by Andrew Bell that appeared in the first edition of the “Enclyclopædia Britannica, or, a Dictionary of arts and sciences, compiled upon a new plan, in which The different Sciences and Arts are digested into distinct Treatises or Systems; amd The various Technical Terms, &c. are explained as they occur in the order of the Alphabet.”

I have a fac simile of this edition. The original was issued serially in sections (as was common at the time) from 1768 to 1771.

Pictures from Bygone Punishments by William Andrews (1848 – 1908), London, 1931

William Andrews appears to have had his own publishing company, and produced quite a number of books on the subject of local history and quaint interest. Bygone Punishments first appeared in 1899; the first edition is out of copyright. I accidentally bought a later edition, and have therefore marked this as not for commercial use.

I also have a copy of his Curiosities of the Church and Historic Byways and Highways of Old England.

“My father hated intolerance and cruelty, and whenever public opinion, horrified by some crime, called for the ruthlessness of the lash and the scaffold, he was quick to point out the warning from the past that angry and revengeful punishment creates more ills than it cures.” (p. viii, preface to the second edition)

Pictures from Curiosities of the Church: Studies of Curious Customs, Services and Records by William Andrews F.R.H.S. (1848 – 1908), London, 1891

I also have his Historic Byways and Highways of Old England (dated 1900).

Pictures from Historic Byways and Highways of Old England edited by William Andrews (1848 – 1908), London, 1900

William Andrews appears to have had his own publishing company, and produced quite a number of books on the subject of local history and quaint interest.

I also have a copy of his Curiosities of the Church and Bygone Punishments.

Pictures from Putnam’s Home Cyclopedia, subtitled Hand-Book of The Useful Arts, by Thomas Antisell, MD [1817 – 14th June 1893], New York, 1852.

The Evening Star newspaper gave Thomas Antisell the following obituary:

“Death of Dr. Antisell

The Close of a Career That Was Full of Activity and Useful Work

One of the well-known men of the city passed away yesterday when Dr. Thomas Antisell breathed his last. The news of his death, as announced in yesterday’s Star, came to his numerous friends with none of the suddenness of an unexpected shock. For some time past his condition has been such that his death might have occurred at any time. Three years ago he had a stroke of paralysis and the disease has been progressive ever since. At the time of his death, which occurred at his home, 1311 Q street, his daughters, Miss Antisell and Mrs. Cruikshank, were with him. Dr. Antisell leaves a family of two sons and six daughters, William Mackey Cruikshank, one of five grandchildren, graduated with honors from West Point only a few days ago.

The funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock from the late residence. The interment will be made at the Congressional cemetery. The honorary pallbearers will be Dr. Lovejoy, Dr. J.M. Toner, Dr. Louis Mackall and Mr. Richard Oulahan, with four members of the District Medical Association. The active pallbearers will be Major William Plunkett, Benjamin Butterworth, James L. Norris, W.H. Baldwin, Edward Farquhar, Assistant Surgeon General Greenleaf, Dr. A.A. Snyder and Charles Lieberman.

A Busy, Honorable Career

Dr. Antisell had a distinguished career. He was born in Ireland in the year 1817, and belonged to a well-known family. From his early student years, which were spent in the best schools of Ireland, England and Germany, his special study was chemistry. He, however, secured a thorough medical education and entered upon the practice of his profession in Dublin, where he also held the position of lecturer of chemistry in the Dublin School of Medicine. Owing to his connection with the young Ireland party he was obliged to leave his native country in 1848. He came to this country and practiced his profession in New York and also lectured on chemistry in various colleges. Several years before the breaking out of the war he was appointed to the position of principal examinar in the patent office in charge of the chemical division. He entered the volunteer service of the Union army as a brigade surgeon. He was afterward medical director of the twelfth army corps, finally receiving the rank of brevet lieutenant colonel for faithful and efficient service.

In 1871 he went to Japan as technologist in the government commission appointed to develop the resources of the northern islands of that empire. He served there six years. He was a member of a number of scientific societies and was at all times in request as a lecturer before scientific institutions. He had been a contributor to scientific literature since his student days, and his works cover a wide range of technical subjects, one of the best known being his “Home Encyclopedia of Arts and Manufacture.” His works are regarded as standard. He had been connected with the Georgetown University for thirty years and received from that institution the degree of doctor of philosophy. He resumed his connection with the patent office, which continued until disease rendered him incapable of much active work.

Antwerpia, author and exact date unknown. I have marked it as for non-commercial use because I don’t have complete copyright information.

Pictures and short extracts from The National and Domestic History of England Volume II (A.D. 1399 – 1603), by William Hickman Smith Aubrey (1858 – 1916). The book is undated, but is probably 1878, since I found someone selling a copy with an inscription dated 1879. The engravings are mostly anonymous, and hence out of copyright; the author died more than 75 years ago, and so the text is out of copyright; any photographs were taken more than 50 years ago and are out of copyright. The status of signed engravings would depend on the artist, but I have not yet uploaded any such items. Check the individual image descriptions for more information.

I also have some images from the fragment of Volume 3 that I bought mistakenly thinking it was the entirety of Vol III.

Pictures and short extracts from The National and Domestic History of England Volume III (A.D. 1399 – 1603), by William Hickman Smith Aubrey (1858 – 1916). The book is undated, but is probably 1878, since I found someone selling a copy with an inscription dated 1879. The engravings are mostly anonymous, and hence out of copyright; the author died more than 75 years ago, and so the text is out of copyright; any photographs were taken more than 50 years ago and are out of copyright. The status of signed engravings would depend on the artist, but I have not yet uploaded any such items. Check the individual image descriptions for more information.

You can also see Volume II; my Volume 2 is about three times as thick as my volume 3, and there is a gap between them, so I think in fact I have only the middle of volume III here.

Pictures from Sussex Painted by Wilfrid Ball (1906).

Wilfrid Ball was born in 1853 and died in 1917.

Pictures and short extracts from Venice by Beryl de Sélincourt and May Sturge Henderson, 1907, illustrated by Reginald Barratt, A.R.W.S. (1861 – 1917).

The book has pictures that are reproductions of Reginald Barratt’s watercolour paintings, using a four-colour dot screen process.

Pictures scanned from The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer, being a Complete System of Occult Philosophy in Three Books (here we feature items from Book II), by Francis Barrett, F.R.C., London, 1801.

Maps and page images from South Wales and the Wye District of Monmouthshire (1892) in the Bartholomew Thorough Guide Series, edited by C. S. Ward, M.A. and M. J. Baddeley, B.A.—I have the third edition of this little guide book for tourists, which is small enough to fit into a suit jacket pocket.

Photographs of British steam engines (railway locomotives) from British Locomotives Illustrated by W. J. Bell, M.I.Loco.E., A & C. Black Ltd., London, 1933.

The photographs in this book are out of copyright because they were taken before 1944 in the UK, and are either by the author or are anonymous. I have not been able to find details about the author, and cannot ascertain the status of the text: it would have copyright protection for 70 years after the author’s death. I have reproduced only the captions of the photographs for now, and not the text.

Pictures from The Pentateuch of Printing with a Chapter on Judges by William Blades (1824 – 1890), Typographer, Chicago, 1891; I have added the captions.

Page images - pictures and text - from William Blake’s 1794 “First Book of Urizen” using the copy helpd by the Library of Congress in the US; they published a digital fac-simile. The book is in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection. I have cropped the images so that only the actual printed part is here; originally the images were printed onto much larger paper. I also enlarged the images somewhat and did some simple colour correction. The smallest size image over 500 pixels (usually 600 or so pixels high) is the original size.

Oddly, the Library of Congress copy appears to be lacking some text. Since the page numbers are continuous, perhaps the pages were numbered later? I have supplied the missing text.

page view

Pictures and Maps from “Complete HISTORICAL DESCRIPTIONS of a New and Elegant COLLECTION of PICTURESQUE VIEWS and REPRESENTATIONS of the ANTIQUITIES of ENGLAND and WALES: Being a Grand Copper-Plate Repository of Elegance, Taste, and Entertainment containing a New and Complete Collection Of superb VIEWS of RUINS and ANTIENT BUILDINGS [etc. etc.]” by Henry Boswell, Esq. F.A.S., London, some time around 1786.

The plates in this book are copies of the ones in Grose’s Antiquities, which obviously saved Mr. Boswell a lot of money in preparing his book but these days might be considered a little improper. Or to put it another way, it’s an eighteenth-century rip.

The maps are not taken from Grose’s book, however.

I do not own a copy of this book. The scans were made at low resolution (300dpi) and in uncorrected colour; I bought them on a CD at an ebay store, Outpost164; if you do the same you might also want the CD of vol III of Grose’s Antiquities sold there. It does bother me that the seller is clearly buying the books, scanning the images, then rippping the books apart to sell the plates.

I have put up the Unedited images and also a few that I have edited. If you want me to edit more you will need to send me your socks, or something.

I have a single page from Britannia Depicta by John Owen and Emanuel Bowen, from about 1720. It was given to me as a gift; I’d rather that the books not be split, myself.

I have scanned both maps: 53 (Towcester, Daventry, Dunchurch) and 54 (Coventry, Coleshill, Lichfield), but only 53 is uploaded right now. Map 54 has been coloured, probably by some anonymous owner of the maps, as they were printed in black-and-white.

Many more of these maps are online here.

Images from Letters & Lettering: A Treatise With 200 Examples by Frank Chouteau Brown, Boston, 1921.

A note printed immediately after the title and impressions pages starts out, “This book is intended for those who have felt the need of a varied collection of alphabets of standard forms, arranged for convenient use.”

A complete page-by-page scan of Oratio Dominica: The Lord’s Prayer in above 100 Languages, Versions and Characters by Dan Brown, published in 1713.

If the PNG images don’t work for you, there are also JPEG ones.

I am interested in making transcriptions of these pages, preferably in Unicode; if you can help with any of that, contact me.

There was an insert in my copy comparing various forms of the alphabet; I’d love it if anyone could help me identify it.

You might also be interested in Fry’s Pantographia, from which I have scanned a number of pages.

A book-seller’s catalogue gave the following description for another copy of the same edition; my copy doesn’t have the same hand-written note, of course.

“ Oratio Dominica. Polygamattos Polymorphos (Greek Letter). Nimirum, Plus Centum Linguis, Versionibus, Aut Characteribus Reddita & Expressa. Editio Novissima, Speciminibus Variis Quam Priores Comitatior.

Small 4to. (6) + 71 (ie 72)pp. Allegorical engraved title-page vignette. 3 plates in text (for ‘Brachmanica’, ‘Sinica’ & ‘Gjorganica’ versions). The Lord’s Prayer printed in more than one hundred languages, often with accompanying phonetic reading version. A ms. note on front endpaper presumably written by William R. Williams (New York 1868) whose inscription appears at top corner of title-page, states that the ‘present is an enlarged edition of the First Edition’ which ‘had become rare & high priced’. In 1715 an Amsterdam reprint of this edition gave the editor‘s name as ‘John Chamberlayne’ (d. 1724). Another note in the same hand suggests the editor was an Irish Catholic mercenary employed by the Duke of Savoy in the Waldensian massacres (p52-the ‘Waldensis’ version is in fact Irish). On pp64 and 65 are two forms from the projected ‘Universal, Philosophical Language’ of Dr Wilkins. The work is essentially a display of fine printing types; some 90 translations of the word ‘Father’ are given at end. Early calligraphic ownership signature of ‘Thomas Blyth.”

There is also a Web site that has the Lord’s Prayer in 1325 languages and dialects, Chrstus Rex.

Pictures from Oud Nederlands (Old Netherlands) by Prof. Dr. H. Brugmans (1927).

Prof. Brugmans died in 1939, less than 90 years ago, so the book may still be in copyright; however, it reproduces 18th century plates which are not themselves subject to copyright, so I am uncertain.

The following pages are taken from a charming little book printed in 1684, entitled Wonderful PRODIGIES of Judgement and Mercy: Discovered in Above Three Hundred Memorable Histories, Containing
I. Dreadful Judgements upon Atheists, Perjured Persons, Blasphemers, Swearers, Cursers and Scoffers.
II. The miserable Ends of Divers Magicians, Witches, Conjurers, &c. with several strange Apparitions.
III. Remarkable Presages of Approaching Death, and of Appeals to Divine Justice.
IV. The Wicked Lives, and Woful [sic] Deaths of wretched Popes, Apostates, and Desperate Persecutors.
V. Fearful Judgements upon Cruel Tyrants, Murderers, &c. with the Wonderful Discovery of Murders.
VI. Admirable Deliverances from Imminent Dangers and Deplorable Distresses at Sea and Land.
VII. Divine Goodness to Penitents, with the Dying Thoughts of several Famous men concerning a Future State after this Life.

Informally, I previously referred to this book as ‘Evil Papists.’

The author is given as “R. B.”—this is a pseudonym for Robert Burton.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Robert Burton.

The text of this book seems to be available online at Cornell University as text and black-and-white scans. Robert Burton also wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy, of which Project Gutenberg has made a text edition.

Engravings from “Die Bücher-Ornamentik Der Renaissance” (Book-Ornament of the Renaissance) by A. F. Butsch, Leipzig, 1878. Alfred Butsch was a famous bookseller and a collecter of antiquarian books; the engraved plates in the book reproduce illustrations from early printed books.

I bought my copy of this book (actually Volume II hasn’t arrive yet!) from a bookseller in Germany; there is also a fac simile by Dover, but the reproduction is not of the highest quality, so these images are better, if very incomplete.

Some images taken from Callot’s Etchings; this is a collection of reproductions of Callot’s 17th century etchings edited by Howard Daniel. The book was published in Britain and Canada in 1974; the text is still in copyright, but the images themselves are long out of copyright.

(Right now my image search system does not cope with the idea of a book that is a collection of images that were published on various different dates, so they all appear to have been made in 1974! Sorry)

Images from The Magazine of Art. Illustrated (c. 1878), published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., London, Paris and New York.

I have marked these images as being in the public domain, but I am actually not certain if this is correct in all cases. You have been warned!

Pictures from The British Isles Depicted by Pen and Camera, “with thirty-nine coloured plates and six Rembrandt Photogravures” (Special Edition), published by Cassell and Company Ltd., London, Paris, New York and Melbourne.

The work is divided into three books, each of two sections; my copy is bound into six separate volumes, each containing one of the sections. The books are undated and could be anywhere from 1880 to 1905; the binding bears the date 1905. Books published in the US before 1923 are out of copyright.

The introduction is by Harold Spender, but there is no attribution for the main text.

Some scans from “The Holy Court in Five Tomes, The First, Treating of Motives, Which should excite men of Quality to Christian Perfection; the Second, Of the Prelate, Soldiers, Sates-men and Lady, The Third, of Maxims of Chritianity against prophanesse, [etc.]”, by Nicholas Caussin, and translated into English some time I think between 1650 and 1660.

There is a hand-written note in my copy:

“This book properly belongeth to Doctor Jaspar ovfrile (?) priest of Limerick who haue bought it for 41s. and 4.d. the first day of August, 1668.”

I in turn bought the book from J. Geoffrey Aspin of Castle Street, Hay-on-Wye, on the England/Wales border, I think in 1989. The text and images are long out of copyright.

The bookplate and title page (coming) from the Dictionnaire François-Anglois & Anglois-François by Louis Chambaud, London, 1815. I have the new edtion, with corrections and augmented by J. Th. Des Carrierès, maître-ès-arts de l’université de paris.

Pictures and short extracts from The Lives of British Architects from William of Wykeham to Sir William Ch ambers by E. Beresford Chancellor, M.A., F.R.Hist.Soc., 1909.

I have marked these images as not for commercial use: the author lived from 1868 to 1937, according to the Library of Congress catalogue, so that copyright expires in 2007 (70 years after the author’s death) but the images may have separate copyrights.

This book seems to have been published simultaneously in America and the UK, before 1923, which would make it out of copyright; in any case, photographs taken before 1957 in England by an English photographer are out of copyright.

Some pictures scanned from the Chatterbox Annual from 1916. Chatterbox was a magazine for boys published weekly in the UK from 1866 to the mid 1950s, and in the US from 1870 to 1933; I have a US edition. Project Gutenberg has a copy of the 1905 edition.

Images from The Works of Shakspere, with notes by Charles Knight, approx. 1873 (my copy lacks the full title page, unfortunately).

There is an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Charles Knight and another for William Shakespeare.

Photographs from Cotswold Country, a book of photographs by S. W. Colyer (1939).

The photographs are taken before 1945 and are out of copyright, because at that time English law gave copyright to photogaphs for 50 years after publication, and photographs that were already out of copyright in 1995 were not “revived” as the law puts it; the text of the book is probably still under copyright (the author was still alive in 1945, less than 70 years ago), so I am reproducing only the image titles. The book had an introduction by Horace Annesley Vachell.

I have started with plate 3, but plan to scan all of them, and, if they should prove popular, maybe look for more by the same photogapher.

The Cotswolds is the name of a range of hills in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, in the Western part of central/southern England; the region is famous for the yellowish-brown limestone used to build houses.

Pictures from The Story of Some English Shires by Mandell Creighton, D.D., Lord Bishop of London (1843 – 1901). My copy says there were one hundred and fifty copies made.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Mandell Creighton.

Pictures from A Record Of Work – 1840 – 1890 by The Brothers Dalziel (London, 1901).

There were eight Dalziel brothers: William Dalziel (the eldest) whose art work was chiefly devoted to heraldic and occasional ornamental decoration for manuscript work, and was also a still-life painter; Robert Dalziel, a portrait painter; Alexander Dalziel a draughtsman, who died of consumption at the age of 23; George Dalziel, a pupil of Charles Gray (an engraver on wood); Edward Dalziel (1817 – 1905), who joined his younger brother George; John Dalziel, who was also an egraver, but who also died young; Thomas Dalziel (1823-1906), who was trained in copperplate engraving, but who later joined George and Edward in engraving on wood; The youngest, Davison Dalziel, “applied himself very successfully to commerce.”

The book is primarily by George and Edward Dalziel.

Pictures from Days with the Victorian Poets [Rossetti, Morris, Browning], published anonymously in about 1910; some catalogues suggest it was published in London, which is likely from the publisher (Hodder and Stoughton) but not certain. Works published anonymously in the UK have limited copyright, which has expired. The pictures are taken from paintings that are no longer in copyright.

Pictures and accompanying texts from Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Dean Ramsay, with illustrations by Henry W. Kerr, R.S.A. (T. N. Foulis, London & Edinburgh, 1911).

Henry Wright Kerr lived from 1857 – 1936, died more than 70 years ago, placing the pictures out of copyright. Dean Ramsay lived from 1778 to 1872; the first edition of the book was published in 1857, and I have the fourteenth edition. Although there were some changes made for this edition, they were made anonymously (since the original author had died) and are themselves out of copyright, so the entire work is out of copyright.

A poor-quality scan of a slightly different edition of this book is online together with a Project Gutenberg edition I think, at archive.org

Scans from The Book of Ornamental Alphabets, Ancient and Mediæval collected and engraved by Freeman Gage Delamotte (1814 – 1862); London, Crosby Lockwood and Co., 1879

If anyone is interested, I’ll try and do some better scans of the alphabets and examples of calligraphy and calligraphic initials in this book.

(Note: Mediæval is the older British English spelling of Mediaeval, or Medieval).

The full title page is transcribed alongside its image. This is an oblong octavo with alphabets printed in various colours including red, green and brown.

I found an online copy of a similar book by the same author at illuminated-books.com but it is for non-commercial use only.

Pictures from “Les Aventures de Jean-Paul Choppart par Louis Desnoyers: L’Episode de Panouille” by Frédéric Goupil.

A small French children’s novel that I bought at Libraire Books in New Orleans. It seems that the character was created by Louis Desnoyers but that this book was written by Frédéric Goupil.

Pictures from Dante Alighieri , La Divina Commedia, L’Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Casell, Petter an Galpin, London, 1868, with full-page (folio) illustrations by Gustave Doré.

I only have one picture, unfortunately, from this book.

Pictures from London by Gastave Doré and Jerrold Blanchard, 1872. There are 180 wood engravings in the book; They are widely reprinted, although as so often it’s hard to find good quality scans on the Web, so I am scanning them again. The book was republished as London: A Pilgimage in 1890, and that is the source of the extracts

Doré (often written Doree or Dore) was botn in Strasbourg in 1822. He became a very successful artist in Paris, but after meeting Jerrold Blanchard in 1855 started to do more work for the English than the French, and in 1867 moved his studio to London.

Jerrold Blanchard was a journalist working for the Illustrated London News.

The illustrations here are sorted by the order they appear in my fac simile, but it does not contain the original text, and they are not in the same order as in the original book.

Update: The Perseus Project has scans from this book too. They are not particularly good, and may have usage restrictions, but they are higher resolution than I make available on the Web directly (you can always ask me for higher resolution images though)

Perseus edition of 1890 London book

Pictures from the First Volume of Goethes Werke, or the Works of Johann Wolfgang von Göthe [Goethe], illustrated by leading German artists, edited by H. Dünker, Stuttgart & Leipzig, printed by Deutsche Verlagsamstalt (formerly Ed. Hallberger).

These scans were kindly sent to me by Alexey Dombrovsky. Since German copyright, sa I understand it, is life plus 90 years for identified works, some of these images may in fact be under copyright; I have tried to identify the artists from their scignatures where I can. Works by Adolf Schill (1848 – 1911) are now out of copyright, as are works by Franz Xavier Simm (1853 – 1918), and unidentfied works are probably out of copyright.

Some prints from metal engravings by Albrecht Duerer (Dürer).

Pictures from A Popular History of Rome by D. Rose, Edited by H. W. Dulcken, Ph.D., 1886, published by Ward, Lock and Co., London and New York. The contributions of Henry William Dulcken (1832-1894) are out of copyright; it seems likely that the text and pictures are also, but since the pictures are generally unsigned it is impossible to be certain..

Pictures from Pictureseque Egypt, by George Moritz Ebers (1837 – 1898), translated by Clara Bell, and measuring approx. 290x370mm (44.5 x 14.5 inches), is a huge two-volume collection of engravings and text. The illustrations that are signed are by Leopold Carl Müller (1834 – 1892). Copies of the plates are often sold on eBay, which is sad because it often means a bookseller has ripped apart a copy of the book.

This is volume one; the next gallery is for volume two.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for George Moritz Ebers.

These books are big (about A3, or 11x17") and did not fit on my older scanner. They’re pretty heavy, too!

Ebers’ Pictureseque Egypt, translated by Clara Bell, and measuring approx. 290x370mm (44.5 x 14.5 inches), is a huge two-volume collection of engravings and text. Copies of the plates are often sold on eBay, which is sad because it often means a bookseller has ripped apart a copy of the book.

This is volume two; the previous gallery is for volume one.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for George Moritz Ebers.

A Treasury of Verse for Little Children, edited by M. G. Edgar, illustrated by Willy Pogany. This book, America, was published in New York by the Macmillan Company in 1923, and the copyright was not renewed, so it is now in the public domain.

Pictures from English Homes Vol III, No. 1, Late Tudor & Early Stuart, 1558 - 1649, 1922.

This is a huge book, measuring 40×28cm (approx. 11×16 inches), and it used not to fit on my scanner. Since then I got a new scanner, a larger one, and I can more easily publish the images. The pictures are out of copyright (published before 1923 in the US, and UK photographs taken before 1957)

Images from Wreck and Sinking of the Titanic edited by Marshall Everett, which may have been a pseudonym of W. H. Walter, as that’s the name given for the copyright. Published in the USA in 1912, so public domain.

These images are generally lower quality than one might like, because of the low-cost production of the book, but they are of historical interest since they relate to contemporary accounts of the sinking of the S.S. Titanic.

Pictures and text extracts from Steam and the Steam Engine: Land, Marine, and Locomotive by Henry Evers, LL.D., Fourth Edition, 1880.

The first preface is dated 1872, which I take for the date of the first edition and presumably of at least most of the illustrations. The book was in the “Collins Advanced Science” series; I doubt that it will still be considered advanced science today!

Images from Quiet Roads and Sleepy Villages by Allan Fea (New York, 1914). I bought this book on eBay.

Pictures from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam translated into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald; With illustrations photographed from life studies by Adelaide Hanscom and Blanche Cumming. Published in New York Dodge Publishing Co. 1905, 1912

I have scanned only only a few of these. As always, let me know (liam at holoweb dot net; for faster response mention the colour of your socks) if you would like more from this book.

There is an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Edward Fitzgerald and another for Dante.

Images and text from Farm Weeds of Canada by George H. Clark, B.S.A. and James Fletcher, LL.D., F.R.S.C., F.L.S. with illustrations by Norman Criddle. Published by direction of the Hon. Sydney A. Fisher, Minister of Agriculture, Ottawa, 1906.

The book does not say it is Crown Copyright, but I am uncertain. I have marked the images as being in the public domain, and in the USA this is true; it would be true also in Canada except that it is an official government publication. On the other hand, I think it unlikely that there would be a problem with people making use of the images, even in Canada.

You can buy a modern reprint of this book, Farm Weeds, from Lea Valley in Canada.

Some borders and symbols scanned from Volume two of Manuel Typographique, utile Aux Gens de Lettres by Fournier the younger, Paris, 1766. My edition is a fac simile; I will post more details when I get home from Boston.

Some page images scanned from Pantographia by Edmund Fry, 1799. I will scan more on request.

There is also an index and a transcription of the entry for New Zealand.

The images here were entered into a competition that Liam Quin ran for the most interesting uses of the pictures on fromoldbooks.org:

Category: Best use of stock. This will be awarded to the image that makes the most unusual, interesting or effective use of stock images from Liam’s “oldbooks” collection at [link] – you can also use other images, either your own or stock, including of course *barefootliam-stock images. Every entry in this category must make prominent use of the "oldbooks" stock.

The competition closed; the entries are reproduced here with permission (it was part of the terms of the competition).

These are copyrighted images, and you must contact the respective aritsts before using them in any way.

Images and Extracts from Tortures and Torments of the Christian Martyrs From the “De SS. Martyrum Cruciatibus” of the Rev. Father Galliano, translated and adapted by A. R. Allinson, M.A. Oxon., 1903

The book is illustrated with 46 somewhat gruesome plates. The French version is online at the Library of Congress. I have scanned the images at higher resolution, but have not scanned the text.

I note that the text clearly claims in more than one place that the Jews crucified Christ, even though the Gospels are quite clear that it was the Romans and not the Jews. This appears to have been standard Roman Catholick doctrine for many centuries.

The book first appeared in 1591; the copper-plate engravings were engraved by Antonio Tempesta of Firenza (Florence) after the designs of Giovanni de Guerra of Modena, painter to Pope Sixtus V. The book was intended for the “edification of the faithful” and was issued with the approval and authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

The edition of which I have a copy claims to be the first in English, and was produced in 1903. Alfred Richard Allinson appears to have been active as a translator from the 1860s until 1913; subsequent books bearing his name as translator appear to be using older texts. As a result I believe this text to be in the public domain.

I am also working on a transcription of the text of this book; the table of contents only gives Chapter 1 so far.

Some scans from a 1581 copy of the Geneva Bible.

These images are large files!

You can see the outside of the book here.

The first version of this translation was made in Geneva, in Switzerland, because the Roman Catholic Church had been so afraid of what would happen if ordinary people had access to the Bible without going through the priests that they had arranged for translating the Bible into modern local languages was punishable by death. The Roman Catholic Church still uses services in Latin in some parts of the world. Such is the power of knowledge and the fear of those in charge of losing that power.

This Bible is also known as the Breeches Bible because, in the story of the Fall from Grace, instead of sewing loin-cloths out of fig leaves, Adam and Eve are described as making breeches (trousers, or, in the US, pants) out of fig leaves, a fairly major sewing project!

My copy is dated 1581, and is rather late. By that time the Reformation had taken hold in England and the text could be printed in English.

Pictures from The Growth of the English House, A Short History of its Architectural Development from 100 to 1800, by J. Alfred Gotch, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A., London, N.T. Batsford, 1909.

Any photographs here I believe to be out of copyright, since Alfred Gotch died in 1942, more than 50 years ago, and copyright expired before 1995, and Alfred Gotch was (obviously) not alive in 1996 in order to obtain “revived” copyright.

The text itself might still be copyrighted, but I am not certain; it’s far to complicated for me to work out. So I am only posting extracts for now.

I also do not know the copyright status of diagrams, plans or maps.

I have marked all the images as on-comemrcial use only, but my understanding is that you can use the photographs in any (legal) way you wish, and that they are no longer subject to copyright.

Pictures from “Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant” Vol I., 1885. Ulysses S. Grant was involved in the American Civil War and went on to become a president.

Pictures from “England” by John Richard Green, LL.D., in the Peter Fenelon Collier “Nations of the World” series, 1898.

John Richard Green (1837 – 1883) wrote a number of history books; I have also A Short History of England.

This book is in four small volumes with four illustrations in each.

Pictures from “A Short History of the English People” by J. R. Green M.A., Macmillan, 1902. This book was first published in 1874, and was very successful. I have the illustrated edition, which was edited posthumously by his widow; this is a reissue of the 1892 edition as far as I can tell from the Impressions page. John Richard Green was an English historian (1837 – 1883). I also have England by the same author.

Francis Grose, Esq., FAS., The Antiquities of England and Wales, Being a Collection of Views of the Most remarkable Ruins and antient Buildings, Accurately drawn on the spot. To each view is added An Historical Accounf of its Situation, when and by whom built, with every interesting Circumstance relating thereto. Collected from the best authorities.
London, Printed by C. Clarke, for S. Hooper, No. 212 High Holborn, opposite Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square, M.DCC.LXXXIII [1783]

My copy of Volume I is falling apart, but that at least means I don’t have to worry about damaging the binding when I scan the pictures! I took a photograph of this book open to the title page.

I wish I had more volumes of this series. I recently obtained volume 3, but it came without the maps, unfortunately. The perils of eBay!

I’ve also typed up a short biography of Francis Grose from 1814.

Captain Francis Grose is also known for compiling dictionaries. I have a copy of his Provincial Glossary. He also wrote a dictionary of slang; Project Gutenberg has made a text version of an 1811 version of this (I have a fac simile edition) and I have used this as a starting point, corrected many errors, and put it online as the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Captain Francis Grose.

Pictures, Maps and Text from Volume III of The Antiquities of England and Wales by Captain Francis Grose. I also have Volume I. I bought Volume 3 from a rather unscrupulous (it seems) book dealer in Cornwall, who neglected to mention the missing maps.

I’ve also typed up a short biography of Francis Grose from 1814.

Captain Francis Grose is also known for compiling dictionaries. I have a copy of his Provincial Glossary. He also wrote a dictionary of slang; Project Gutenberg has made a text version of an 1811 version of this (I have a fac simile edition) and I have used this as a starting point, corrected many errors, and put it online as the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Captain Francis Grose.

Items taken from Harmsworth’s Encyclopædia (approx. 1904).

This is an eight-volume Encyclopedia; the printing quality is not very high, but some of the images are useful.

Page images from Volume One of Thomas Hearne’s 1745 edition of the Itinerary of John Leland the Antiquary. There are nine volumes in all. I have scanned all of the pages in volume one that are part of the Itinerary, but not the preface, introductions and other items. The final page has errata.

If you like, you can help this project by emailing me (liam at holoweb dot net) all of the names you see (they are mostly in italics) on any given page, and I will add them so that people can find them more easily. Ideally I’d like to add the modern spellings too. As always, use a subject line like “itinerary 037 socks: green” of “itinerary 037 barefoot” so that you get past my spam filters. I get well over a thousand messages a day.

I have a two-volume set of the lives of Hearne and Wood; the woodcuts here are mostly from the first volume. which is The Life of Anthony à Wood From the Year 1632 to 1672, Written by Himself, and Published by Mr. Thomas Hearne.

This is also online at Google Books as The lives of those eminent antiquaries John Leland, Thomas Hearne, and again at here, although I think both copies are of the first volume only.

Images and scanned pages from The Grammar of Heraldry by Samuel Kent, 1718.

I am in the process of scanning this book and transcribing it. Here is the full text of the book as far as I have done so far, together with links to the scanned pages.

Pictures from Cambridge Described by Noel Barwell and Pictured by E. W. Haslehust [1866 – 1949], Blackie & Son Limited, London and Glasgow, in the Beautiful England series (undated).

Although the book is undated, the Library of Congress and various bookseller catalogues mentioning dated inscriptions indicate a date no later than 1920. The illustrations may still be in copyright, since the books were not produced in the USA, so I have marked them as for non-commercial use only.

Pictures from Oxford, Pictured by Ernest Haslehust [1866 – 1949] and Described by F. D. How, Blackie & Son Limited, London and Glasgow (undated but probably some time between 1920 and 1935).

There are more pictures of Oxford in Oxford: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes by Lang.

Pictures from The Scott Country - beautiful Scotland, Described by John Geddie, Painted by E. W. Haslehust, R.B.A. [1866 – 1949], Blackie & Son Ltd., London and Glasgow.

I don’t have an exact date for this book; probably 1920, although the cover under the dost jacket is plain: after about 1911 they started to have pictures on them. Because of the uncertainty I’ve marked the pictures as free for non-commercial use.

Pictures from Warwick and Leamington, Pictured by Ernest Haslehust [1866 – 1949] and Described by George Morley, Blackie & Son Limited, London and Glasgow, in the Beautiful England series (undated).

Yann Lovelock kindly pointed out to me that the tramway shown in the Eastgate painting was last used in 1930, so the paintings were clearly made before then; evidence in the text and also clothing worn by people in the pictures suggests that a date of approximately 1920 is likely. The illustrations are I think still copyright, as this book was produced in the UK and it’s less than 70 years since the death of the artist, so I have marked them as for non-commercial use only.

Pictures from The History of Wales by B. B. Woodward, B.A., London, (Quarto, 1853 [First edition] vi + (ii) + 608pp, illustrated with 76 steel-engraved plates)

If you use these pictures for anything, or would like me to scan more, let me know. You can refer to the list of illustrations. All of these images are out of copyright (in the public domain). Henry Gastineau (the principal artist) died in 1876.

There is a low-quality scan of this entire book at Google Books but they forgot to scan the plates, I think.

Pictures from Art In England, edited by Charles Holme [1848-1923], London, 1908

The full title is “Art in England During the Elizabethan and Stuart Periods, Written by Aymer Vallance, With a Note on the First Century of England Engraving by Malcolm C. Salaman. Illustrations after drawings by Wilfrid Ball, R. E., Harry P. Clifford, R.B.A., E. Arthur Rowe and William Twopeny. Edited by Charles Holme. Offices of the Studio, London, Paris, New York, MCMVIII [1908].

Note: I am uncertain about the copyright on some of these illustrations, so I have marked them non-commercial use only. If they were produced and published in the UK it depends on the date of death of the artist. If the book was published in the US, they are out of copyright. If you know for a fact they are OK where you live, go ahead and use them. Where I know the status I’ve marked it with the individual image.

I don’t know where the book was actually made. My copy was bound in Toronto, but it’s possible it was issued simultaneously in the UK and USA, or only in the USA; Paris seems least likely.

See also Sussex by Wilfrid Ball.

Harry P. Clifford is possibly Harry Clifford Pilsbury (1870 – 1925).

Pictures from Old English Country Cottages, edited by Charles Holme [1848-1923], London Paris and New York, 1906

This book (and all that it contains) is out of copyright, because it was published jointly in the US and UK before 1923.

Pictures from The Everyday Book and Table Book, by William Hone, 1826, London.

The illustrations are probably by George Cruikshank.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for William Hone and another for George Cruikshank.

The book has been scanned entirely and low-resolution page images of the full book are online hosted by Google.

Images from Great Men and Famous Women, an American book from 1894 featuring pen and pencil sketches of famous people together with notes on them by well-known writers.

The book was published and printed in the USA before 1922 and hence is in the public domain.

Images from The River Dee: Its Aspect and History by J. S. Howson. My copy has a splendid red leather cover. 4to. pp. xiv, 174, 174. wood-engraved frontis. & 92 text illus. after the drawings of Alfred Rimmer. Complete with half-title, contemporary gilt-stamped roan, inside dentelles, all edges gilt. First edition Chapters on the city of Chester and its cathedrals, Dee River halls, castles, bridges &c.

John Saul Howson died in 1885; Alfred Rimmer died in 1893. The text and images are out of copyright.

Illustrations from The Illustrated London News, Vol. LVI (1870).

This was a popular weekly newspaper in London, with huge numbers of engravings. Because of the printing processes and relatively low paper quality the engravings are not always very clear.

There is an index online at iln.org for 1870.

Pictures from The Works of Jane Austen published by Fank S. Holby in 1906; the illustrations are signed C. E. Brock, 1898.

These images were scanned by “The Sanity Inspector” of Atlanta, USA, for his blog, All Edges Gilt, and appear here with his kind permission.

I think that this is The Novels and Letters [Works] of Jane Austen Edited by R. Brimley Johnson; with an Introduction by Prof. William Lyon Phelps, in 12 volumes, and limited to 1250 copies. It was published in New York in 1906, and hence is out of copyright. The artist, Charles Edmund Brock, was English, and died in 1938, so his work in any case fell out of copyright at the end of 2008.

Pictures from Memorials of Old Hampshire Edited by G. E. Jeans, M.A., F.S.A., London, Bemrose and Sons, 1906.

Canon George Edward Jeans was Vicar of Shorwell and Rector of Mottiston (later combined into Vicar of Shorwell-with-Mottiston), Isle of Wight. He was a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. He was vicar of Shorwell from 1888 and died on the 7th of August 1921; his obituary in Wisden’s Almanack said that he was an enthusiastic cricketer.

The text is hence out of copyright. Individual pictures may still be in copyright, but I have checked all that I have scanned and found most of them to be OK; the remaining are probably out of copyright, and I have marked the collection public domain. All photographs in this book are in any case out of copyright.

Pictures from Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners. A Complete Sexual Science and a Guide to Purity and Physical Manhood, Advice To Maiden, Wife, And Mother, Love, Courtship, And Marriage by Prof. B. G. Jefferis, M.D., Ph. D., of Chicago, IL., and J. L. [James Lawrence] Nichols. I have the tenth edition, from 1895, published by W. F. Currie in Fredericton, New Brunswick here in Canada, but the book is originally American, and is out of copyright.

It turns out that there is a Project Gutenberg edition of this book here, but thee image scans there are of really low quality. If you would like me to scan an illustration from this book, let me know using the Comment link on one of the pictures I have from this book.

Some images taken from A description of the Nature of Four-Footed Beasts, With their Figures Engraven in Brass, written in Latin by Dr. John Johnston. Translated into English by J. P.

The author is referred to in catalogues as Jonstonus, Joannes (1603-1675). The book was published in London.

The book is online at University of Wisconsin Digital Collections under History of Science and Technology; I requested (and obtained) permission to use the impages, which the University has confirmed are in the public domain; I also place (in case there is any question) my own versions of the images in the public domain, so you can use them in any way you like.

You will find here (eventually) not only copies of the page images from Wisconsin University, but also cleaned-up versions of the scans, with individual animals in separate files.

Some images from Portraits and Principles of the World’s Great Men and Women with Practical Lessons on Successful life by over Fifty leading Thinkers, designed and arranged by William C. King, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1897. I bought my copy at Olivia’s Bookshop in Picton, Ontario, in May 2007.

The portraits in the book are grouped; I have scanned the entire page, but I can make individual portraits available at slightly higher resolution if it is useful. Ask by emailing me or by using the comment link on the appropriate image.

Some images from London, edited by Charles Knight (1841).

There is a complete copy of the text and images from this book: The Perseus Project, Bolles Collection, but it is copyrighted and the images can only be reused for personal or educational purposes. If there are any images there that you would like to see me scan and place in the public domain, let me know (tell me the volume number and full image title).

The images here are all in the public domain.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Charles Knight.

Some images from Volume IV of London, edited by Charles Knight (1841).

There is a complete copy of the text and images from this book: The Perseus Project, Bolles Collection, but it is copyrighted and the images can only be reused for personal or educational purposes. If there are any images there that you would like to see me scan and place in the public domain, let me know (tell me the volume number and full image title; I have all six volumes).

The images here are all in the public domain.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Charles Knight.

Some images from London, edited by Charles Knight (1841).

There is a complete copy of the text and images from this book: The Perseus Project, Bolles Collection, but it is copyrighted and the images can only be reused for personal or educational purposes. If there are any images there that you would like to see me scan and place in the public domain, let me know (tell me the volume number and full image title).

The images here are all in the public domain.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Charles Knight.

This is Volume VI; see also Volume II.

Pictures from Oxford: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes by Andrew Lang, M.A., sometime Fellow of Merton College, Oxford [1844 – 1912]; sixth edition, Seely & Co. Ltd., London, 1896.

There are some more pictures of Oxford done by Haslehust, in colour.

I am working on a transcription of this book. I found one online at worldwideschool.org but it lacks the images, and has many errors.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Andrew Lang.

Illustrations from Alice’s Aventures in Wonderland, or, Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Caroll (1866). The illustrations were done by Sir John Tenniel [1820 – 1914].

These images were scanned by Shawn Calvert fro the 1898 edition (MacMillan & Co., London), who kindly contributed them. They are also online at his Website. Liam Quin made the JPEG versions.

Shawn’s original Web site

There are many copies of the Project Gutenberg scans of these illustrations on the web. These images are not derived from those. they were made by a professional graphic designer, at much higher resolution, and have much more detail.

Lewis Caroll was of course a penname (nom de plume) of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. The book was written after he and a friend, Rev. Robinson Duckworth, went on a trip in a rowing-boat at Oxford, on the River Thames, from Follie Bridge to Godstowe, near Oxford, together with three schoolgirls.

The North American Lewis Carrol Society has collected pointers to online Alice resources.

Lewis Carrol Society list of illustrations

Some of the engravings are signed Dalziel, and there are also some images and extracts from a book by and about the Dalziel Brothers.

Illustrations from Alice Through the Looking-Glass, or, the proper title, Through the Looking-Glass And What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll, With fifty illustrations by John Tenniel; London, 1871; my copy is later, 1935. I have not yet scanned all 50 illustrations.

The illustrations, along with those from Alice In Wonderland, helped to make John Tenniel famous; less well-known is that the pictures were engraved (in order to print them) onto wood by the Dalziel brothers.

Frontispiece and map of the New Forest, taken from a book called Historical Inquiries concerning Forests and Forest Laws, with Topographical Remarks, upon the Ancient and Modern State of The New Forest, in The County of Southampton by Percival Lewis in 1811.

The book does not have any other illustrations of general interest, but the text is fascinating.

Pictures from The Thames Illustrated: A Picturesque Journey from Richmond to Oxford (Richmond to Hampton Court) by John Leyland (1897).

The British Library catalogue says John Leyland was “of Forest Hill” but I have no more information than that.

The edition I have could be either 1897 or 1901. I am only guessing that he died no later than 1937, and that hence the images are out of copyright, but it seems likely.

Some delightful Victorian diagrams from a textbook, Elementary Mechanics, Including Hydrostatics and Pneumatics by Oliver J. Lodge, D.Sc. Lond., circa 1880.

Pictures from Myths Every child Should Know edited by Hamilton Wright Mabie and illustrated and decorated by Mary Hamilton Frye. My copy is dated 1922, but says clearly Copyright 1905, 1914 by Doubleday, Page & Company. It was printed in the USA and I think is in the public domain.

There is a Project Gutenberg text version of another edition of this book, but it is not the same.

Illustrations and brief extracts from Rome, with text by M.A.R. Tuker and Hope Malleson and paintings by Alberto Pisa, Macmillan, London, 1905.

A note at the end of the list of illustrations says The Illustrations in this volume have been engraved by the Hentschel Colourtype Process.

Scans From Girolamo di Manfredi’s book, Eccles. Liber, In Quo Omnia, Quae Hanc Materiam pertinent, copiosissime trectantur..., Bologna, printed by Giovanni Rossi, 1564. Plus, it has a really cool cover.

Pictures from “An Island Story” by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall (1867-1941), with illustrations by Archibald Stevenson Forrest (1869-1963)

The book is a potted history of Britain for children, written in what today would be considered a rather condescending tone (are you sitting comfortably, children?) and with a somewhat moralistic slant; it was published in 1907 and reprinted in 1920; I have the 1920 edition.

Purchased at Picton Antiques Fair, May 2009, for $10

Pictures from “Cathedral Cities of France” by Herbert Marshall and Hester Marshall, 1907. My copy has a red stamp on the title page, “Toronto, the Mission Book Co. Ltd. 1907” but the Impressions page says Copyright 1907, by Dodd, mead & Company, Published September 1907” from which I take it that this book was printed in the USA and imported. In either case, whether American or Canadian, it is out of copyright now.

Images from Edinburgh (1912) by Rosaline Masson [1822 – 1907], with illustrations painted by John Fulleylove [1847 – 1908].

My edition is dated 1912; it was first printed in 1904, reprinted with slight alterations in 1907, and then reprinted in 1912.

The Goetia, or Lemegeton Clavicula (The Lesser Key of Solomon the King, Clavicula Salomonis Regis), is part of a pseudoepigraphical work, i.e. claiming to be by someone (Solomon) but almost certainly nothing to do with Solomon. It probably dates from the 17th century, although it is based on texts at least as old as the 14th century. S. L. Mathers transcribed it into a more modern English, and copied (I think) the illstrations. There are 72 different demons described, each with one or sometimes two seals. I have scanned the seals (the first third or so at least, so far) at 1200dpi, because I could not find any acceptable scans on the Web. The designs of the seals are long out of copyright.

For the extracts I have used a combination of two versions that you can easily find online, and I have compared them to the 1995 edition edited by Hymenaeus Beta and published by Samuel Weiser; the text was published in the US in 1916, and is out of copyright, although that edition was probably not authorised by Crowley or Mathers. Since Crowley attributed the text to Mathers, however, who died in 1918, it is all out of copyright.

The sizes given for the seals are approximate: they do vary very slightly, since they were hand-made.

Resurge has made some free Photoshop Brushes (here is the second pack) from the 700-pixel versions of the seals of the 72 fallen angels.

Pictures from Look at the Bright Side, A Tale for the Young by Joanna Hooe Matthews (1849 – 1901); London, Edinburgh and New York, 1883.

I do not have a copy of this book: the scans were sent to me by Ken Winko.

Images from The Christian Parlor Magazine, edited by Rev. D. Mead and Rev. D. Clarke.

I only have Volume III, which covers May 1846 up to April 1847.

Images from The Story of Rome by Norwood Young, illustrated by Nelly Erichsen; this book was published in J. M. Dent & Co’s Mediæval Towns series in 1901. My copy is the 1904 edition.

This book is obviously out of print; you can search for a used copy on Amazon.

Norwood Young died in 1943, less than 70 years ago, according to the Library of Congress Online Catalog, so the text is still under copyright. I have not been able to find reliable dates for Nelly Erichsen, so I don’t know the copyright status of the images.

Pictures, text and page images from “The Entirely New Cynic’s Calendar of Revised Wisdom, 1905” by Ethel Watts Mumford, Oliver Herford and Addison Miznerr. I bought my copy of this little book in Olivia’s Books in Picton, Ontario. It is out of copyright.

Sometimes you open a book and find things inside, like an old calling card, or a calculation written on a scrap of envelope. Or a pressed flower from two hundred years ago. I’ve saved these things and have started to scan them.

Images from Our Village (1893) by Miss Mitford – Mary Russell Mitford (1787 – 1865) – with one hundred illustrations by Hugh Thomson (1860 – 1920). I bought my copy at Olivia’s Books in Picton, Ontario.

The text and illustrations are out of copyright; I have not yet scanned all of the illustrations, but the text is online if you do a Web search.

Images from The Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith written by himself and edited by D. M. Moir. Illustrated in colour by Charles Martin Hardie, R.S.A. (1858 – 1916) [October 1911]

The book pretends to be an autobiography but in fact the Cambridge History of English and American Literature says “David Macbeth Moir wrote for his friend, Galt, the last chapters of a novel, The Last of the Lairds, and was the author of The Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith (1828), a partly satirical, and very amusing, study of humble Scottish character, so shrewdly observed and neatly set down that the reader regrets its interruption by the interpolated romance The Curate of Suverdsio.

(I am not sure that the 1828 figure can be correct; as far as I can tell, Moir lived from 1822 to 1907.)

There is a Project Gutenberg edition of this text, but it is abridged to the point of being little more than a summary.

Some images from De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld: of beschryving van AMERICA en ’t ZUID-LAND, with text and engravings/woodcuts by Arnoldus Montanus, Amsterdam, 1671.

These engravings are from a book at the Library of Congress; I found the images (which are out of copyright) here: lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbkb/0003/ – beware that the files there are 24 MBytes each, there’s some 18 Gigabytes of them, and most do not have illustrations. I have kept the same filenames, so you can download the originals if you want, from the Library of Congress. I have processed the images, cleaning them up as if they were scans (they are actually photographs, and lower resolution than I normally prefer), and am converting most of them to grayscale.

Words and pictures from “A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of The Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland with descriptive and historical letterpress” edited by The Rev. F. O. Morris, B.A., author of a “history of british birds,” dedicated by permission to her most gracious majesty the queen.

A fabulous example of eight-colour printing, using of course multiple print runs; I do not know whether the same plate was hand-inked, or whether multiple plates were made.

I only have Volume I. Kudos to the bookseller, Crescent Books in New Orleans, for not ripping the book apart and selling the prints.

Photographs from In Search of Scotland by H. V. Morton, 1929. These beautiful photographs are out of copyright (UK before 1957) but the text itself is not, so I have included only short extracts (allowed under “Fair Dealing”). There is no indication as to who took the photographs: if they were by the author, I should expect mention of them in the text, but so far I have found none.

The sizes here refer to the photograph and not the border, which is actually printed in the book, I think in an attempt to mimic the more expensive and older style of pasting in plates.

Dictionary definitions from Nathan Bailey’s Canting Dictionary [thieving slang], 1736:

A Collection of the Canting Words and Terms, both ancient and modern, used by Beggars, Gypsies, Cheats, House-Breakers, Shop-Lifters, Foot-Pads, Highway-Men, &c;

Page images are here; for the text of the dictionary see the transcription page.

Some of the words defined are also used in Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes edited by J. Farmer.

Pictures from Nathan Bailey’s Universal Etymological Dictionary from 1726 (I have the second edition, I think; it is a large quarto).

You can also read the old dictionary entries that I have typed up from this book.

Pictures from England Beautiful by Wallace Nutting (1861 – 1941), illustrated by the author.

This book was published in the USA in 1936, and copyright was not renewed in 1963, 1964 or 1965, which means it is in the public domain and out of copyright.

Pictures from Bill Nye’s History of England by (as you guessed) Bill Nye, in 1896; my copy is dated 1900 and has a preface that mentions the death of the author.

The cartoons are by W. M. Goodes and A. M. Richards.

Old England: A Pictorial Museum of Regal, Ecclesiastical, Baronial, municipal and Popular Antiquities, Charles Knight (1791 – 1873) London, Charles Knight and Co., Ludgate Street, First Edition, 1845, two volumes, folio, pp. viii, 392; vi, 386, 24 chromoxylographs (incl. frontis.). Many wood-engraved text illustrations.

My copy has contemporary (worn) half-calf with gilt backs; there is some light foxing and dampstaining to the plates and margins of some leaves. Ref. Abbey, Life, 43; purchased D. & E Lake Toronto, 1992.

This book has been reprinted, but the reprint is out of print; you can search for a used copy on Amazon.

Some more of the images are online in much lower resolution scans at New York Public Library, as reprinted in a later book.

I have typed in the index to the book so that you can ask me for other scans if you like.

There is also a very incomplete transcription if you want to read the actual book!

The book starts with Druidical and Prehistoric remains and continues on to have Castles, Manors and stately homes, Churches, Abbeys and Cathedrals and much more.

Charles Knight also produced an illustrated edition of the Works of Shakspere, as he spelt it.

There is an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Charles Knight.

Some of the engravings were done by the Dalziel brothers; I have some images from their autobiography, A Record of Work.

Contents

Volume I

Book I. Before the Conquest. [Fig. 1]

Chapter I. The British Period. [Fig. 80]

Chapter II. The Roman Period. [Fig. 189]

Chapter III. The Anglo-Saxon Period.

Book II. The Period From the Norman Conquest to the Death of King John. A.D. 1066—1216.

Chapter I. Regal and Baronial Antiquities.

Chapter II. Ecclesiastical Antiquities.

Chapter III. Popular Antiquities.

Book III. The Period From the Accession of Henry III. to the End of the Reign of Richard II. A.D. 1216—1399.

Chapter I. Regal and Baronial Antiquities. Fig. 814]

Chapter II. Ecclesiastical Antiquities.

Chapter III. Popular Antiquities.

Book IV. The Period From the Accession of Henry IV. to the End of the Reign of Richard III. A.D. 1399—1485. [Fig. 1150]

Chapter I. Regal and Baronial Antiquities.

Chapter II. Ecclesiastical Antiquities.

Chapter III. Popular Antiquities.

Although some of the images here are from Volume II, I plan to move them into their own darling little folder soon, and will make a second table of contents.

This book is online at archive.org, although the OCR has done a really bad job, and the scans are lower resolution and not cleaned up. But you could use it to request a specific image, and I will scan it for you if it’s not here yet.

Pictures from Castles by Charles Oman, K.B.E., M.A., All Souls College, Chichele Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford; Member of Parliament for the University; Hon. LL.D. (Edin) and Fellow of the British Acadamy, etc. Published by the Great Western Railway, Paddington Station, London, 1926.

Sir Charles Oman appears not to be regarded today as a good historian; see, for example, R. Allan Brown’s comments quoted at the soc.history.mediaeval web site maintained by Paul Gans.

Photographs in this collection are out of copyright, because they were taken in the UK and published before 1945, but I am uncertan about the copyright of the other items, and they should not be used commercially. The copyright may have been held by the Great Western Railway, or by Sir Charles Oman (1860 – 1946). Most likely it was the Great Western Railway, in which case I think coyright expired 70 years after publication. But it is far too complicated for me to be certain, and Web sites seem to contradict one another about it.

Some wood engravings from Illustrations of Baptismal Fonts by F. A. Paley, M.A., 1844; Mr. Paley was at this time the honorary secretary of the Cambridge Camden Society, according to the title page. This is Frederick Apthorp Paley (1815 – 1888) according to the Library of Congress catalogue.

Note that these are fonts for wetting the heads of infants in batism, not computer fonts!

Pictures from Francis Peck’s Desiderata; there are not many pictures in this book, and these are not all as good scans as I should like, unfortunately. I have the second edition, dated 1779. Francis Peck, M.A., was rector of Godeby near Melton in Leicestershire, according to the title page.

Images from Travels In The Far East by Ellen M.H.Peck (Mrs. James Sidney Peck), 1909. THe book records a nine-month journey made by the author.

Images from In the Land of the Temple by Joseph Pennell (1860 – 1926), 1915

Reproductions of a series of lithographs made by [Pennell] in the land of temples [i.e. Greece], March – June 1913, together with impressions and notes by the artist.

Joseph Pennel died in 1926, more than 75 years ago, so these images are out of copyright, as is the text.

Here are some public domain pctures of old books. You can do whatever you like with these, although you shouldn’t say that you made them! The one with the shelf visible was taken by my partner, who also explicitly assigned copyright to the public domain.

There are some more pictures from old books taken from an old book, too.

There’s something about leather-bound books; a lot of people collect leather books. For my own part I’m more interested in what’s inside the book than the fine bindings, but since some of these antiquarian books still look rather pretty, I thought I’d share some pictures!

Page images and pictures from Nathan Bailey’s 1721 Dictionary of Proverbs.

This is the Table of contents; there is also a transcription with the definitions and explanations. I used a 1917 edition from Yale University and the Oxford University Press, which is now out of copyright.

I also have Nathan Bailey’s Canting Dictionary online.

Pictures from Life and Work of the People of England: The Fourteenth Century by Dorothy Hartley (art teacher at the Polytechnic Institute, London) & Margaret M. Elliot, B.A. Lond. (St. Aloysius Secondary School, London.), Putnam’s, New York and London, 1929.

This book is one of a series; I have several others. I turns out that copyright was renewed for this publication on 28th Feb 1957, so it and the images in it are still under copyright.

Pictures and extracts from Francis Quarles’ Emblems, Divine and Moral, inclusing The School of the Heart and Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man, by the poet Francis Quarles [d. 1644]; this very late edition is from 1866, and includes a sketch of the life and times of the author, and also wood engravings to illustrate each emblem. It was published by William Tegg in London in 1866. The artist is not credited, and I’m guessing that the illustrations are from the 18th century; this would place them well out of copyright.

Images and text from Some British Ballads illustrated by Arthur Rackham. No credit is given for whoever might have edited the collection; the ballads appear to be reprinted with minor changes (possibly errors) from Francis James Child’s The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, and indeed the book acknowledges that permission was given to do that.

I bought my copy from Olivier’s Booksop in Picton, Ontario, in May 2006.

Arthur Rackham, the famous illustrator of children’s books, died in 1939, more than 50 years ago, making the images out of copyright here in Canada; the book was published in the USA prior to 1922, and hence is in the public domain in the USA.

Cambridge and its Story by Charles Williams Stubbs, D.D., Dean of Ely [later Bishop of Truro; 1845 – 1912], with twenty-four lithographs and other illustrations by Herbert Railton, the lithographs being tinted by Fanny Railton. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., Aldine House, Covent Garden, 1912.

The tinted lithographs are really difficult to scan for some reason, even though I now have a professional-quality scanner with colour correction. If you would like more pictures from this book, which I believe to be in the public domain both in the US and in the UK, send me a picture of your ankles. But I had a lot of Oxford pictures and wanted to start to balance it!

And I know of the future judgment
How dreadful so’er it be
That to sit alone with my conscience
Would be judgment enough for me.

Alone with my conscience, C W Stubbs

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Charles William Stubbs.

Images and some text extracts from The Real Mother Goose published by Rand McNally & Co. in Chicago, 1919.

It turns out that there is also a Project Gutenberg edition of this book, although the images are rather small and seem too dark. Let me know if you would like me to scan any of the images.

Some woodcuts from “A Compleat Collection of English Proverbs Be Your Gods” by John Ray, 1737. John Ray was a clergyman and a biologist and naturalist; he was born on the 29th day of June, 1628, and named John Wray; he changed his name to Ray when he was 42. He died in 1705.

John Ray Initiative

Images from YORK, an undated book of pictures of York with no text. If you know more about this book, let me know. The images have a thin reddish-brown border and text in brown.

English photographs taken before 1945 are out of copyright.

Images from The Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume I edited by Professer W. L. Renwick, printed at the Shakespeare Head Press in St Aldates Oxford and published for the press by Basil Blackwell in 1930.

in particular, I have scanned the headings from The Shepherd’s Calender (or, as Spenser put it, The Shepheardes Calender).

The decorations were designed and engraved on wood by Hilda Quick, and those in The Shepheardes Calender were based on the woodcuts in the original editions printed in quarto by Hugh Singleton in 1579. The initial letters and the letterings for the title-page and headings were engraved by Hilda Quick from designs by Joscelyne Gaskin.

I am not happy with the way the colours are coming out, and may redo them: the blue is too dark and the yellow too orange.

I do not know the copyright status of these images; when I scanned them I had received some incorrect information. I found a reference to a book illustrated by Hilda Quick and published in 1948, so it looks as if her work is still under copyright, although it may also have been published after her death. In addition, Joscelyne Gaskin died in or after 1992, although I do not know whether she held any part of the copyright. I have marked the images for non-commercial use only.

Pictures and words from Out to Old Aunt Mary’s by James Whitcomb Riley (1904); Drawings by Howard Chandler Christy, and decorations by Margaret Armstrong. Originally published in 1887; my copy is dated 1904.

Pictures and captions from “Le Musée Artistique et Littéraire: Revue Hebdomadaire Ilustrée” edited by J. Roam, Paris, 1880. I have Tome IV (volume 4) parts I and II, bound together, obtained at one of those market stalls outside the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

I have marked the images as being for non-commercial use only, but see individual items for more details. Copyright in France these days is life+70 years, so the artists from this 1880 book would have had to have died in or before the end of 1938, unless they died on military service (getting an extra 30 years of protection!). However, anonymous works, including works published under a pseudonym, and collective works, last 70 years after publication. As a result, unless otherwise indicated, the works here are out of copyright. Note that moral rights are perpetual and inalienable in France, which does not have a “public domain” like the USA. As a result, you must still credit the artist if it is known (and so must I). The wikipedia article on French copyright is a little misleading when it says that items enter the domaine public, because of this.

An incredibly low-resolution scan of this entire book is online at archive.org, along with the claim that the contents of the book are not in copyright, although that is not clear to me.

Pictures and excerpts from “These Be Your Gods” by Leslie Roberts, illustrated by A. G. Racey. The book conists of a series of short articles about famous people in Canada. The book was published and printed in Canada; Arthur G. Racey died in 1941, more than 50 years ago, so copyright has expired on the illustrations. Leslie Roberts was born in 1896 (a grandson of his with the same name is still alive). I previously though the text was out of copyright, but it turns out he was still writing in 2002 at least, so the text will not pass out of copyright until at least 2052.

Images and some text extracts from South by East: Notes of Travel in Southern Europe by G. F. Rodwell (Marcus Ward, London, 1877).

Some page images and details taken from a mediæval Latin Book of Hours in the Rosenwald collection at the Library of Congress in America. The manuscript was once believed to have been written and decorated by Geoffroy Tory.

The pages were scanned at the Library of Congress and are online there as Ms. Library of Congress. Rosenwald ms. 10

There are 113 leaves in the manuscript, which is written on parchment approximately 24cm high (10 inches or so).

In some cases I have digitally enlarged the images so that you can use them in print projects; this makes the larger images be slightly fuzzy.

A bird’s-eye view of Stratford-on-Avon made by J. Ross Brown in or about 1908. It is not to scale.

Pictures and page images from La Vita Nuova (The New Life) by Dante Alighieri, translated by Gabriel Rossetti and illustrated by Evelyn Paul, with music by Alfred Mercer.

The book is undated, but it appears to have been produced some time between 1897 and 1920. Most booksellers say about 1910, so that is what I have used.

Gabriel Rossetti was a Pre-Raphaelite painter and a Romantic writer and poet.

The full text of this translation is online at The Rosetti Archive, although it isn’t exactly the same edition.

I have scanned some complete pages, some details, and also some borders.

There is an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Charles Dante Gabriel Rossetti and another for Dante Alighieri.

Evelyn Paul died in 1945, less than 70 years ago, but this book was published jointly in the UK and the US, before 1923, and hence is out of copyright, so I have marked the images as public domain.

Images and text from Round the Coast, published by George Newness in 1895. Probably these images are all out of copyright, but I can’t tell, so I have marked them for non-commercial use only.

Images and text from the Rylands Haggadah, manuscript from the 14th/15th century CE. A Haggadah is a book of liturgy (words and songs and possibly prayers and actions) for the Passover. It was probably written out (from theTalmud) in Barcelona.

I do not own the original manuscript, but rather have a fac simile of it published in London and New York. In UK and US law, a fac simile does not give additional copyright to the people who made the fac simile; however, the copious notes and translations are copyright, and I will not reproduce them here.

The manuscript itself is in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, in England.

Images from Die schönsten Sagen des Klassischen Altertums (the most beautiful legends of classical antiquity) by Gustav Schwab, 1888.

At least part of this book seems to be online at www.sagen.at. If you don’t speak read German, you can enter the URL into the Google search bar and get a machine translation of the pages.

Some diagrams and illustrations taken from A Textbook on Ornamental Design published by International Correspondence Schools, Scranton, PA., USA, 1901.

There are two volumes; there was originally also a portfolio of images, which is not present in my copies of the books.

Images from Scribner’s Magazine from 1903, volume 11 (November 1903).

I am actually starting with the old advertisements (ads). Please remember that the advertisements are over 100 years old, so the items might no longer be for sale...

If you would like to transcribe any of the advertisements, please use the Comment link under the image; I’ll put the text up and link back to your Web site too if you like.

William Seward’s Travels Around the World, edited by Olive Risley Steward and copyrighted by her for him in 1873 after the death of the author.

The book is divided into sections: United States, Canada, and Pacific Ocean; Japan, China, and Cochin China; The Eastern Archpelago, Straits of Malacca, and Ceylon; British India; Egypt and Palestine; Europe.

William H Seward was an American secretary of State, although the book does not seem to mention that.

The book measures approx. 155x235mm (a little over 6 x 9 inches).

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for William Henry Seward.

Some images from Alphabets and Numbers of the Middle Ages by Henry Shaw, 1845. I have a fac simile of this out-of-copyright work, and the fac simile is itself out of copyright.

This book is also online (with a much lower-quality scan) at Google Books; if you see a page you would like me to scan from my fac simile copy, let me know. Unfortunately, the colour printing in the fac simile uses the four-colour screening process, so I cannot provide high-resolution scans for some of the colour images, although they will be fine for Web or print use in most cases.

See also Symms on Illuminating for some beautiful colour decorative initials, and Delamotte on Alphabets for some beautiful alphabets.

A New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences by Ebenezer Sibly [1751-1800], M.D. F.R.H.S., Embellished with Curious Copper-Plates, London, 1806.

Part of this text is online courtesy of Joseph H. Peterson, and a search for Ebenezer Sibly, A New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences, Book 4 should find it; since he doesn’t allow any further reproduction, I have not linked to it directly.

Pictures from Architecture: Gothic and Renaissance by T. Roger Smith, F.R.I.B.A. Professor of Architecture at University College, London (Sampson Low, Marston and Company, Limited, 1896)

Roger Thomas Smith (1830 – 1903) died more than 70 years ago, and the book is out of copyright.

I bought my copy of the book at Renaissance Books UK in Broadford, on the Isle of Skye.

Some pictures from Das Farbige Ornament aller Historischen Stile by Alexander Speltz, Leipzig, 1915. This has been republished by Dover several times and by Portland House (Putnams) in 1988 as The History of Ornament: Design in the Decorative Arts.

I cannot find born/died dates for the author: the latest listed in the Library of Cnngress catalogue is 1915. However, the images themselves are all much older and are out of cpoyright.

Extracts and pictures from A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Laurence Sterne, with illustrations by Maurice Leloir, Comprising 220 drawings in the text, and 12 full-page compositions.

The full-page plates are photogravures using the Goupil process. I bought my copy for $50 in Decemer 2007 at a bookstore in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, but it has water damage.

Pictures from A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, with illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith (Charles Scribners’ Sons, New York, 1905).

Jessie Willcox Smith was an American illustrator born in Philadelphia, USA, in 1863 and died in 1935; the illustrations are in the public domain because published in the USA before 1923. Jessie illustrated over 30 books, which seem to have been very popular, and also painted the covers of Good Housekeeping magazine for many years. There are several printed biographies.

A short online biography of Jessie Willcox Smith

I bought my copy on the 1st of February, 2007, at Librarie Books, 832 Chartres St., New Orleans, LA, USA.

Pictures and extracts from “American Animals” by Witmer Stone [1866 – 1939] and William Everett Cram (1871 – 1947), Doubleday Page & Co., New York, 1902. Oddly, “Everett” is written as “Everitt” on the cover.

This book has a lot of photographes of North American animals.

Pictures from Series XII (Monumental Architecture) from the Library of Plates for Architects, published around 1910 by The Proprietors of the Architects’ and Builders’ Journal, Technical Journals Ltd of Westminster, London.

Copyright status: photographs made and published in England before 1957 are out of copyright.

There are fifty full-page plates, approx 17x25cm (a little under 7 × 10 inches).

Pictures from Wood Engravings by Thomas Bewick, by John Rayner, 1947; this King Penguin has reproductions of wood engravings by Thomas Bewick (1753 – 1828) with text (still under copyright) by John Rayner. I have not included the text.

The animals are probably from A General History of Quadrupeds (Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1790). See also The Bewick Society for more information.

Pictures from In Unfamiliar England by Thos. D. Murphy (Boston, 1910).

This is a book written by an American tourist. It has the advantage that it is in the public domain and the disadvantage that the text isn’t very good!

A. Hamilton Thompson, The Cathedral Churches of England, London, SPCK, 1925; I do not know the copyright status of this book, nor of the individual images.

Pictures from The Gnome King of Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson, illustrated by John R. Neill, Copp Clark Co. Ltd., Toronto, 1927.

As I understand it, this book is out of copyright in Canada, and, since it is Canadian, public domain or copyright-free everywhere else too.

I bought this book at Olivia’s Books in Picton, Ontario.

Images from Turrets Towers and Temples – The Great Buildings of the World, as Seen and Described by Famous Writers edited and translated by Esther Singleton.

The book was published before 1922 in the USA and is out of copyright.

Images scanned from The Art of Illuminating As Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times by W. R. Tymms, with an Essay and Instructions by M. D. Wyatt, Architect. London. Published April 2nd 1860 by Day and Son, Lithographers to the Queen.

There are 100 full colour plates in the book done in chromolithography, as well as a chromolithographed title page. I have only scanned a few because my scanner damages the binding. The text is by Matthew Digby Wyatt and the images appear to have been made by W. R. Tymms (and not Symms, as this page used to say).

Harpers Magazine commissioned the pictures shown here to accompany a story called “The Lost Boy” in the early 1900s some time. They were painted by N. C. Wyeth. The book I have, “The Lost Boy” by Henry van Dyke, contains black-and-white reproductions of the paintings. You can see the originals if you subscribe to Harper’s Magazine.

I have hand-coloured one of the illustrations very roughly to approximate a faded version of the original painting.

The actual story is religious, and I have not reproduced it.

Pictures from English Cathedrals by Mrs. Schuyler van Rensselaer, Century, New York, 1910, illustrated with one hundred and fifty-four drawings by Joseph Pennell, and also with plans and diagrams.

Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer (Mariana Griswold), the famous American art critic and author, was commissioned by “The Century Magazine” to write about twelve English cathedrals to accompany drawings by Mr. Pennell. The resulting magazine articles were then revised to make the book from which these drawings have been scanned. The first edition was in 1892, but mine is the fifth edition, from 1910.

Images and extracts from “The Leisure Hour” collected edition of 1896. It was published in London, where copyright lasts until 70 years after a person’s death. There is no editor credited, and usually no artist or engraver, but it’s not inconceivable that a twenty-year-old could have worked on this edition and lived to be over seventy. I have marked the images as being for non-commercial use only, but if you determine that an image is out of copyright, go ahead and use it as you will.

Images and some text from The Leisure Hour: An Illustrated Magazine for Home Reading, 1904/5.

Individual images may or may not be out of copyright here; I cannot guarantee that I have it right, sorry.

Images from De humani corporis fabrica libri septem by Andreas Vesalius (1514 – 1564), and published in 1543 in Basel by the famous German printer Johannes Oporinus. Some of these images are relatively low quality; I recently discovered some better ones, and am updating them, courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine; there are thumbnails and images at their Vesalius page, and higher resolution TIFF images are available.

See also the very helpful page at the National Library of Medicine on Vesalius; there is also (on words.fromoldbooks.org, our sister site, a biography of “Andrew Vesalius” written in on before 1812, as part of Chalmers’ General Biographical Dictionary.

Updike, in Printing Types, their history forms & use wrote (in vol. I):

“One city that stands out splendidly in the work of the sixteenth century German press is Basle. The great figure in printing there was Froben (1460 – 1527), who set up his printing-house as early as 1491; but who is now chiefly remembered by his associatoin with Erasmus [...]

In the group of distinguished printers there, were Oporinus, printer for Luther; Petri, Episcopius, Cratander, Curio, and Bebel. Their editions, especially the folios embellished by brilliant decorations and initials by the Holbeins, Urse Graf, and other designers, will repay study. It is easy to recognize most Basle books of this period by their heavy roman type, very solidly set, and by certain typographical peculiarities of arrangement. There are of course exceptions, such as the magnificent folio De Humani Corporis Fabrica, of Andreas Vesalius, printed by Oporinus in 1543—a volume not at all of the Froben order, but reminiscent rather of Plantin or some Italian printer. Its noble old style type and delicate italic, delightful initial letters, and the careful anatomical engravings and famous title-page “The Anatomical Chamber” (attributed to Titian but [really] by Jan Stephan van Calcar), make up a remarkable volume. The closeness of the type-setting is noteworthy and erallrecalls much earlier books, and its presswork is uniformly good.” (pp. 142 – 144)

The Visconti-forza tarot cards predate the invention of “regular” playing cards with their hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades. They appear originally have been for a game a little like whist, in which you must follow suit or play a trump, and in which you work with a partner to take tricks.

The pack shown here dates from the 1450s. It is incomplete: it does not have the 3 of swords, the Knight of Coins, the Tower or the Devil. In addition, six cards have been substituted from another pack: Fortitude, Temperance The Moon, The Star, The Sun and The World.

I did not scan these images, although I do own a fac-simile of the cards. They came from David Madore here, with permission; see also David Madore’s site. The images themselves are in the public domain.

Words and pictures from “Electric Lighting for Marine Engineers” by Sydney F. Walker, undated but approx. 1890 (a bookseller lists an 1892 edition). Lots of steampunk potential here!

Pictures and words from A Pictorial and Descriptive Guide to Lynton, Lynmouth, Exmoor, Minehead and the Land of “Lorna Doone.” with new plans of Lynton and Lynmouth and Minehead; map of the district and map of North Devon. Published by Ward, Lock & Co. of London, 1910/1911.

This little series of guidebooks seems to have been very popular; it told the reader how to get to places using public transport, and in particular the railways, which was particularly useful in a time when most people were without cars.

I have marked it for non-commercial use because I’m not certain about the copyright status.

Words and pictures from “The Charm of Oxford” by J. Wells, 1920, and illustrated by W. G. Blackall.

There is also a Project Gutenberg text edition of this book, but their images are not very good. From this edition I take it that the images and text are out of copyright.

Pictures from English Ancestral Homes of Noted Americans by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott and Company, MCMXV [1915].

Anne Hollingsworth Wharton was born on 15th December 1845 and died on 29th July 1928, more than 70 years ago, so that this work is out of copyright. She was a descendent of Joseph Wharton and hence related to Thomas Wharton Jr. (1735-1778), the first President of Pennsylvania.

Pictures from The Natural History of Selborne by The Rev. Gilbert White (1788). See the title page for more information about the book.

There is also an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Gilbert White.

Some images from The William Morris Kelmscott Chaucer, published originally by William Morris in 1896 at the Kelmscott Press in Hammersmith, London. I am scanning from the Omega press fac simile, which is not in colour (some of the original pages were in red and black), but I did not find good scans elsewhere online. The book was an important example of the Arts and Craft movement.

Words and pictures from “Elements of Geography Ancient and Modern; with an atlas” by J. E. Worcester, A. M., Stereotype Edition, Boston, 1825.

These illustrations are from The World’s Best Music: Famous Songs and Those Who Made Them edited by Helen Kendrick Johnson, Frederic Dean, Reginald DeKoven and Gerrit Smith, Vol I, The University Society, New York, 1900.

Some images from Legends of the Black Forest, published by C. Wild, Bookseller to the Court, baden (Germany), c. 1890.

This 1890 book is a translation of the same book by Alex. Württemberger, according to the publisher’s preface. The engraver is not credited, but the pictures are of frescoes on the walls of the Trinkhalle in baden, and those pictures were painted by Jakob Gotzenberger (1802 – 1866).

Although German copyright law gives the artist copyright for life and 90 years, the artist here died more than 90 years ago. The translater is not given credit, and, although I have not found dates for the author, I think it not unreasonable to suppose the text to be out of copyright since it is an anonymous work. But I am not certain, so you should feel free to use the pictures commercially if you like, but not the actual extracts. the pictures are signed by the publisher, Verlag C. Wild, and the location, Baden-Baden, but not by the artist.

The stories seem to be gothic horror rather than children’s stories. I wouldn’t want to be thinking about them after a few beers!

I bought my copy of the book at Renaissance Books UK in Broadford, on the Isle of Skye. If the Website is down, they are closed for winter; see their abebooks store instead.

Pictures from Religion in the Home: Illuminated Bible Stories for Young and Old Written in Simple Language by Charlotte M. Yonge, and illustrated by the German painter Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld (1794-1872). The artist’s name is spelt thus in the book, although Wikipedia has it Carolsfeld.

This American book was produced in or before 1913, and is now in the public domain.

Pictures from The Youth’s Instructor and Guardian for 1830. This appears to have been an evangelical Christian monthly publication produced by J. Mason. I have Volume XIV (1830).