"From Ebenezer Sibly's Astrology: A New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences (1806)"
I’m such a sucker for really cool, old graphics. As a child, I’d pour through those “Books of the Year” sets and go back as far as I could. Well, Kirstin Butler has what I’ve always wanted: a lead on thousands of old photos.
Thanks to the tireless curators behind brilliant sites such as 50 Watts, BibliOdyssey, Paleofuture, and How to Be a Retronaut, to name just a few of the Internet’s treasure troves, we now have collections of archival material that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.
A newcomer to this stable of gems, From Old Books is similarly fueled by an individual’s passion for preserving graphics, and so also the culture, of bygone eras. Its creator, a British web developer named Liam Quin, has assembled a stellar selection of over 3,000 images from—and of—more than 180 rare antique books.
It was mentioned in the quote-text above, but it’s worth remembering that PaleoFuture is rife with old photos, though they have the added benefit of being predictive of the future. And by predictive, I – of course – mean hilariously wrong.
If you have any other great resources to contribute, please do so in the comments.
