The Public Domain Review

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The Public Domain Review
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Not-for-profit project dedicated to exploring curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas — focusing on works now fallen into the public domain. Smaller posts surface images, books, audio, and film (sourced from places like Internet Archive, Library of Congress, The Met, Rijksmusuem, Wellcome, etc.) — and we've also 300+ long-form essays (✍️ submissions welcome!) Here we'll mostly be tooting about content on our site. 🎺 Website: https://publicdomainreview.org Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/publicdomainrev/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/PublicDomainRev Tumblr: https://publicdomainreview.tumblr.com/
Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal, a Christmas tale about 2 children who get lost in the blinding snow, loved by WG Sebald, Hannah Arendt, Thomas Mann + WH Auden (who called it a "beautiful parable about the relation of people to places, of man to nature")
The Public Domain Review
Adalbert Stifter’s Rock Crystal (1846)
A Christmas classic about two children who get lost in the blinding snow, by the Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter, beloved by W. G. Sebald, W. H. A...
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#OnThisDay in 1931, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley died from pneumonia contracted after walking home in a snowstorm. In 1885, the self-educated farmer from Vermont, using a homemade camera, became the first person to photograph a snow crystal:
The Public Domain Review
The Snowflake Man of Vermont
Keith C. Heidorn takes a look at the life and work of Wilson Bentley, a self-educated farmer from a small American town who, by combining a bellows...
 #otd
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Entering the US public domain in 2026: Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage. More info behind window 19 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st:
The Public Domain Review
What Will Enter the Public Domain in 2026?
At the start of each year, on January 1st, a new crop of works enter the public domain. Find our highlights of what lies in store for 2026 here.
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L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) remains the most popular of the Oz books — not least of all because it’s the only one illustrated by W. W. Denslow. See the wonderful illustrations, and more on Denslow's eventful life, here:
The Public Domain Review
W. W. Denslow’s Illustrations for the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
The strange, unhappy life of W. W. Denslow, the illustrator of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
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Entering the public domain in 2026, in countries with a "life + 70yr" copyright: The works of Thomas Mann. More info behind window 18 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st:
The Public Domain Review
What Will Enter the Public Domain in 2026?
At the start of each year, on January 1st, a new crop of works enter the public domain. Find our highlights of what lies in store for 2026 here.
 #PDin2026 image