Mazes and Labyrinths (1922)
William H. Matthews’ vast and richly illustrated encyclopaedic portrait of these mysterious phenomena across time and space….more
Books
Alice’s Adventures in Shorthand (1919)
Unique edition of Lewis Carroll’s classic, published in Gregg shorthand….more
The Library of the Future: A Vision of 1983 from 1883
The American librarian C.A. Cutter looks forward from 1883 to “the library of the future” in 1983….more
Paterson’s Roads (1826 edition)
Perhaps the closest thing the 19th century ever got to Google Street View, a book to guide the journeyer along the major roads of England and Wales….more
Schneider Von Groot’s Christmas Dream (1885)
Born of the temperance movement, this poem dramatises the ills of drinking schnapps, through one man’s bloody battle with thousands of intoxicated demons….more
The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornish Man (1750)
Proto science fiction fantasy romance of an English castaway and a remote race of flying humans….more
Anecdotes of Animals (1905)
Book featuring a hundred real or real-ish tales of ingenious, loyal or otherwise extraordinary animals….more
Nineteenth-Century Textspeak
Poems from the Victorian era and before which anticipated 21st-century textspeak….more
East of the Sun and West of the Moon, illustrated by Kay Nielsen (1922 edition)
Book of Norwegian fairytales and one of the finest creations to emerge from the golden age of illustration….more
Spells Against the Evil Spirits of Babylonia (1903)
Babylonian and Assyrian incantations against various demons, ghouls, vampires, hobgoblins, ghosts, and evil spirits….more
The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century (1825)
Guide to astrology and the occult by the mysterious “Raphael”….more
Pepys’s Ghost (1899)
In this strangest of diaries, the author and adventurer Edwin Emerson Jr voices one year in his life through the mouth of Samuel Pepys….more
