The Public Domain Review
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publicdomainrev.bsky.social
The Public Domain Review
@publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas. Featuring 300+ essays — ✍️ submissions welcome. We also have a mighty fine prints shop.

https://publicdomainreview.org
Wonderful series of photographs offering a glimpse into female friendship in Maine, ca. 1898: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/babb-photographs
December 2, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Our End-of-Year Fundraiser is launched! https://publicdomainreview.org/support

We're a not-for-profit project reliant on reader donations to stay afloat. Please do give if you can! Available to donors, our themed postcard packs: upcoming theme on... ATTENTION.

#GivingTuesday
December 2, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Front cover to The Cubies’ ABC, an alphabet book published in 1913 devoted to a satirical takedown of Impressionists, Cubists, Futurists, and all other pretenders to the crown of Art. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-cubies-abc-1913
December 2, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Entering the US public domain in 2026: Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons.

More info behind window 2 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026
December 2, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Final day to get your orders in for T-shirts and mugs if you need them delivered before December 25th. All proceeds go to support to the PDR!

T-shirts: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/t-shirts/
Mugs: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/mugs/
December 1, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Entering the US public domain in 2026: William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.

More info behind window 1 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026
December 1, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Between 1905 and 1911, the sheet music covers of Gotham-Attucks Co. — a song-publisher managed by some of the most famous Black writers and performers of the day — revolutionised how Black popular music was shown to the public: publicdomainreview.org/collection/g...
December 1, 2025 at 3:34 PM
The bloody throes of a boar hunt as a medieval fortress rises like derelict tower blocks in the distance? Must be the festive month of December! The last entry in the Labors of the Months section from the Très Riches Heures manuscript, 15th century: publicdomainreview.org/collection/l...
December 1, 2025 at 12:46 PM
What will enter the #publicdomain in 2026? Each day through December we’ll open a window in our advent-style calendar to reveal our highlights! https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2025/

(+ for the impatient/curious we've links to lists of new entrants.)
December 1, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Page from the remarkable Model Book of Calligraphy (1561–96), a collaboration across many decades between a master scribe, the Croatian-born Georg Bocskay, and Flemish artist Joris Hoefnagel. More here: buff.ly/2...

Prints for sale here: publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints/artist/j...
November 30, 2025 at 8:46 PM
#SundayReads: Miya Tokumitsu on a group of French artist's making "clichés-verre" and the friendship which lay at the heart of their output: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/cliche-verre-and-friendship-in-19th-century-france/
November 30, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Happy birthday Mark Twain, born #onthisday in 1835. The best known of his books is Huckleberry Finn, not so well known is Jap Herron which, according to a woman named Emily Grant Hutchings, he dictated from beyond the grave via a ouija board... publicdomainreview.org/collection/j... #OTD
November 30, 2025 at 3:15 PM
#OnThisDay in 1900, Oscar Wilde died. Read our essay on the claims of plagiarism that dogged his career, particularly as regards his relationship with that other great figure of late-C19th Decadence, the American painter James McNeill Whistler: publicdomainreview.org/essay/o... #OTD
November 30, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Today is the final day to order if you want any framed prints shipped to the UK, Canada, or Australia, and unframed prints to Australia (and others) before Dec 25th. Browse our collection of 900+ prints here: publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-ar... — All profits back into the project!
The Public Domain Review
Premium prints using pigment-based archival inks (Giclee process) on high grade heavyweight art paper. Available as unframed or framed and ready to hang.
publicdomainreview.org
November 30, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Journal of a Few Months’ Residence in Portugal (1847) is a lively travelogue by William Wordsworth’s daughter Dora, recording her observations of the Iberian peninsula: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dorothy-wordsworths-journal-of-a-few-months-residence-in-portugal-1847
November 29, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Twenty-eight Years of Co-partnership at Guise (1908) — An admiring account of Jean-Baptiste Godin’s factory, social housing, and workers’ co-operative in the French town of Guise: https://buff.ly/3uhzHLm
November 29, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Sketches in Bedlam (1823) — a book gathering together glimpses into the personalities and stories of more than 140 mental patients confined to the Bethlem Hospital in the early part of the 19th century: http://buff.ly/1olkDH0
November 29, 2025 at 3:15 PM
#OnThisDay in 1530, Cardinal Wolsey fell ill and died while on his way to London after being accused of treason. By all (or at least many) accounts he was a big man, with a body mass to rival his political weight. But was this true? publicdomainreview.org/essay/i... #OTD
November 29, 2025 at 12:47 PM
From our Conjectures series... Weaving extracts from a naturalist’s private journals and unpublished sci-fi tale, @eayers0 creates a single story of loneliness and scientific longing: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/it-is-disturbing-to-find
November 28, 2025 at 8:47 PM
A very happy birthday to the ever-beguiling and brilliant William Blake, born #onthisday in 1757.

Pictured here, his depiction of the biblical story of Jacob's Dream. One of several Blake prints for sale in our online shop: publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints/artist/w... #otd
November 28, 2025 at 5:46 PM
We won't be doing Black Friday promotions for our shop... but you can buy (at a fair price, with all proceeds supporting the project) this image of a black square representing the nothingness prior to creation!!! ⁠

One of 900+ prints available: publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-ar...
November 28, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Born #onthisday in 1881, Stefan Zweig, the Austrian writer who was one of the most famous writers in the world in the 1920s and 30s. Read Will Stone on the importance of Zweig's early friendship with the oft overlooked Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren: publicdomainreview.org/essay/e... #otd
November 28, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Just 6 years after “The First #Thanksgiving” meal, Thomas Morton founded the controversial colony of Merrymount, described as a “school of athesim” and home to the “beastly practices of the mad Bacchanalians”. More in our essay by @WithEdSimon: publicdomainreview.org/essay/l...
November 27, 2025 at 5:45 PM
To all those celebrating today, a very happy #Thanksgiving! If you are in need of some last minute improvised table decorations this could be of use... The Art of Ornamental Orange Peeling, from 1910: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-ornamental-orange-peeling-1910
November 27, 2025 at 3:16 PM
During one sleepless night in 1879, German priest Johann Schleyer felt a Divine presence telling him to create a universal language. The result was Volapük. @ArikaOkrent explores the rise + fall of the first invented language to gain widespread success: publicdomainreview.org/essay/t...
November 27, 2025 at 12:47 PM