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The New Inquiry is a space for discussion that aspires to enrich cultural and public life by putting all available resources—both digital and material—toward the promotion and exploration of ideas.

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The Public Domain Review

is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available on the web. You can explore our curated collections of curiosities and our fortnightly articles from leading scholars, writers, and artists at publicdomainreview.org

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The Witch of the Woodlands

By The Public Domain ReviewOctober 29, 2013
Robin the "Cobler," as punishment for his lecherous ways, is turned into a variety of animals before being transformed back into a man
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Too Sexy for My Shirts

By The Public Domain ReviewSeptember 11, 2013
From anti-bombardment balloon wear to the proto-hipster 16th century mercenaries, we take a stroll down time's catwalk
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Picture in Picture

By The Public Domain ReviewAugust 23, 2013
What's a better subject for art than a majestic wall full of beautiful art?
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Tennis with Muybridge

By The Public Domain ReviewJune 14, 2013
The vast majority of Eadward Muybridge’s work was done in a special sunlit outdoor studio, where one of his favored subjects to show the human form in locomotion was the tennis player.
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The World Turned Upside Down

By The Public Domain ReviewMay 23, 2013
The folly of man exemplified in twelve comical relations upon uncommon subjects
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The Hasheesh Eater

By The Public Domain ReviewApril 16, 2013
I could not doubt it. I was in the power of the hasheesh influence. My first emotion was one of uncontrollable terror...
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Decayed Daguerreotypes

By The Public Domain ReviewMarch 25, 2013
Daguerreotype portraits were made by the model posing before an exposed light-sensitive silvered copper plate. The fixing however was far from permanent – like the people they captured the images too were subject to change and decay.
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Manhood, Womanhood, And Their Mutual Interrelations

By The Public Domain ReviewFebruary 26, 2013
A selection of illustrations from the extremely bizarre Creative and Sexual Science, or, Manhood, Womanhood, and their Mutual Interrelations by O.S. Fowler
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Dirty Glut

By The Public Domain ReviewDecember 19, 2012
Details from Brueghel's Gluttony interspersed with images from How to Set the Table by Mrs. Sarah Tyson Rorer
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Caruso Sings The Vowels

By The Public Domain ReviewOctober 17, 2012
The great Enrico Caruso taking us through the vowels as shown in Caruso's Method of Voice Production: the Scientific Culture of the Voice
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Animals on Trial

By The Public Domain ReviewSeptember 27, 2012
A chronological list of animal prosecutions from the ninth to the nineteenth century.
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Barnard's Universal Criminal Cipher Code

By The Public Domain ReviewAugust 20, 2012
All images cropped from a microfilm of Barnard's Universal Criminal Cipher Code for Telegraphic Communication between Chiefs of Police, Sheriffs, Marshals and other Peace Officers of the…
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Dr. Julius Neubronner's Miniature Pigeon Camera

By The Public Domain ReviewJuly 6, 2012
In 1908 Neubronner patented his “Method of and Means for Taking Photographs of Landscapes from Above”, a lightweight miniature camera which could be strapped to a pigeon and activated by a timing mechanism.
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