Rare sighting of the Nantucket Sea-Serpent in 1937 ... quickly revealed to be a publicity stunt by ambitious puppeteer Tony Sarg. Despite the hoax working a treat, Sarg would subsequently struggle to compete in the ruthless puppeteer market: http://buff.ly/1JHAAkZ

Illustrations of various strains of pollen in extreme magnification, as featured in Ueber den Pollen (1837), a book by St. Petersburg based German pharmacist and chemist Carl Julius Fritzsche:

The Public Domain Review

Pollen Up Close (1837)

Illustrations of various strains of pollen in extreme magnification, as featured in <em>Ueber den Pollen</em> (1837), a book by St. Petersburg base...

"Friendship books" were the #Facebook of the 17th and 18th centuries (without the ads and data mining). Here's a fine example of one begun in 1795 by the aunt of the poet Felicia Dorothea Browne:

The Public Domain Review

The Friendship Book of Anne Wagner (1795-1834)

Pages from a friendship book of Anne Wagner, aunt to the poet Felicia Dorothea Browne, who herself has a number of entries in the album, including ...

#FriendshipDay

"Having accidentally tasted the dragon's blood, Siegfried becomes able to understand the language of the birds which tells him of Brünnhilde, the fair maiden who sleeps on a fire-encircled rock..." As pictured in The Victrola Book of the Opera (1913):

The Public Domain Review

The Victrola Book of the Opera (1913)

First published in 1912, this is the second edition of what would, by 1976, become a series of thirteen separate, and ever-expanding, versions of a...

Happy birthday Beatrix Potter, born #onthisday in 1866. Here she is as teenager with her pet mouse Xarifa. More in our essay on her life by the late Frank Delaney:

The Public Domain Review

The Tale of Beatrix Potter

This year, the works of one of the most successful and universal writers of all time came into the public domain in many countries around the world...

#otd

Beautiful illustrations of iron interacting with rocks, from the publication of a paper, "On the Disposition of Iron in Variegated Strata", delivered by the botanist and geologist George Maw to the Geological Society on April 22nd 1868:

The Public Domain Review

On the Disposition of Iron in Variegated Strata (1868)

Images depicting ferruginous variation from a 19th-century geological paper, at times like some kind of geological precursor to the 50s experiments...

A step-by-step guide to drawing mice, from a 1913 book entitled What to Draw and How to Draw it. More drawing instruction from this book, plus a 1935 follow-up by the same author, here:

The Public Domain Review

*What to Draw and How to Draw It* (1913)

A cartoon drawing masterclass from Edwin G. Lutz, the man who inspired Walt Disney to animation fame.

Photographs of sea stars, collected during the Siboga Expedition around Indonesia, 1899–1900. More here:

The Public Domain Review

Photographs of Sea Stars (1917)

Strangely alluring images from a report by German zoologist Ludwig Heinrich Philipp Döderlein on starfish collected during the Siboga Expedition a...

Mongolian manuscript from the 19th century, full of charts and diagrams that astrologers (generally Buddhist monks) would use to calculate the best time to do certain things, such as depart on a trip or remove a dead body from a dwelling:

The Public Domain Review

A Mongolian Manual of Astrology and Divination

US NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE - Michael J. North, Head of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts, takes a look at one the highlights of the Library&#39...