Browse Items (716 total)

Though it has likely evolved in terms of practice from when Mr. Podgers was reading palms (or being a "cheiromantist," as the book calls it), palm reading is still considered a fairly popular practice among people who engage in spiritual practices,…

In a lot of Thomas Hardy's literature, such as "On The Western Circuit", he describes beautiful landscapes of Wessex. He created this fictional place in order to make his own histories and stories within a place he created by his own hand. Perhaps…

This is the cover page from the Illustrated Police News, a sensationalist tabloid that would seek to satisfy the morbid curiosities of its readers. On this date in 1876, the cover featured illustrations of murderous apparitions. We see in the middle…

Joseph Watson & Sons Ltd was a soap manufacturer in Leeds, Yorkshire. Interestingly enough, Joseph Watson was also the director of the London and North-Western Railway (an advertisement for the railway is already an item in our exhibition). Both…

Isaac Baker Brown's journal about insanity, epilepsy, catalepsy, and hysteria gives a clear depiction of how people perceived women who exhibited resistance to domestic living in the Victorian Era. Included in this item is the journal's title page,…

The title page of the book that records the activities of the Christian Brothers during the Franco-Prussian War.

Almost two decades after founding Life Magazine, in 1901, John Ames Mitchell, a Harvard University educated architect, artist, and author, published The Pines of Lory with Life Publishing Company. The novel follows the unfolding of the unlikely…

This book details how to pull off simple magic tricks as well as how to communicate with spirits. Published in 1855, we can get a sense as to the fascination Victorians had of the supernatural and how this fascination inspired many writers in the…