"They were three months passing through the forest", an illustration (for Old French Fairy Tales, 1920) by Virginia Frances Sterrett who died of tuberculosis #onthisday in 1931, at the age of just 30. See more of her magical illustrations here:

The Public Domain Review

Old French Fairytales, illustrated by Virginia Frances Sterrett (1920)

A collection of works by French author, Comtesse de Ségur and exquisitely illustrated by a 19 year old Virginia Sterrett, her first commission.

#OTD

In her essay “Reading Like a Roman”, Alex Tadel explores Graeco-Roman reading culture through one of its best-preserved and most lavishly-illustrated artefacts:

The Public Domain Review

Reading Like a Roman: Vergilius Vaticanus and the Puzzle of Ancient Book Culture

How did Virgil’s words survive into the present? And how were they once read, during his own life and the succeeding centuries? Alex Tadel explor...

Bert van de Roemer on the curiosity cabinet of the Dutch collector Levinus Vincent (1658-1727) and the aesthetic drive behind his meticulous ordering of its contents:

The Public Domain Review

Redressing the Balance: Levinus Vincent’s Wonder Theatre of Nature

Bert van de Roemer explores the curiosity cabinet of the Dutch collector Levinus Vincent and how the aesthetic drive behind his meticulous ordering...

@rijksmuseum

Pages from Geometria (1543) by German artist, mathematician, and cartographer Augustin Hirschvogel. In this version from the Deutsche Fotothek, amid the rigid lines of the geometrical sketches appear the chaotic forms of stains:

The Public Domain Review

“I Reunite Architecture and Perspective”: Hirschvogel’s *Geometria* (1543)

Geometrical drawings inspired by Dürer that feature “nets”, representations of unfolded polyhedra.

Drawing on sources as varied as Wordsworth, Hitchcock, and Conan Doyle, author @PhilipPullman considers the sonic beauty and expert storytelling of Milton's masterpiece and the influence it has had on his own work:

The Public Domain Review

The Sound and the Story: Exploring the World of Paradise Lost

John Milton’s Paradise Lost has been many things to many people — a Christian epic, a comment on the English Civil War, the epitome of poetic a...

#OnThisDay in 1921, several thousand white citizens and authorities began to violently attack the Black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Karlos K. Hill investigates the disturbing photographic legacy of the Tulsa race massacre:

The Public Domain Review

Photographing the Tulsa Massacre of 1921

On the evening of May 31, 1921, several thousand white citizens and authorities began to violently attack the prosperous Black community of Greenwo...

The Cloud, one of the many lovely illustrations by Robert Anning Bell for a 1902 edition of Shelley poems. More here:

The Public Domain Review

Poems of Shelley Illustrated by Robert Anning Bell (1902)

Intaglio print from William Blake’s series For the Children: The Gates of Paradise (1787-93). More from the series here:

The Public Domain Review

William Blake’s *The Gates of Paradise* (1787-93)

Angels emerge from avian eggs and a figure climbs a ladder to the moon, in Blake's unique take on the emblems tradition.

Happy #WorldTurtleDay! Here's a kind turtle helping a monkey out with a ride, from the Lights of Canopus, a 19th-century Persian version of an ancient Indian collection of animal fables. More here:

The Public Domain Review

Illustrations from the Lights of Canopus (1847)

Exquisite illustrations from a 19th-century Persian version of an ancient Indian collection of animal fables called the Panchatantra.

Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, fell for one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century when he became convinced that the "fairy photographs" taken by two girls from Yorkshire in the 1920s were real. Mary Losure explores: https://buff.ly/11byRMg #AprilFools