Everybody's head had been turned into that of a pig."  From English Illustrated, 1907.

The secrets of How to Be Your Own Cat go back to the Meiji period of Japan, when cat people wrote books in between naps.  For example, the author of the Japanese classic I Am a Cat was himself a feline: "Choosing a kitten for the main character has a two-fold meaning as Sōseki was, in fact, himself a stray kitten" (Aiko Ito & Graeme Wilson's introduction to Sōseki Natsume's I Am a Cat).  Our illustration from a 1906 edition of the book.

Here's a precursor to Gary Oldman as Dracula in the Coppola film.  From Droll Stories Collected From the Abbeys of Touraine, illustrated by Gustave Doré, 1907.

Q: "Why did Lewis Carroll?"

A: "Because Alice threw the looking-glass!"

—The Sketch, 1901

While it's true that you can't get blood from a turnip, the ox heart carrot is another story.  From the Annual of True Blue Seeds, 1905. 

From The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum, 1909.

Artist unknown, ca. 1909.  A scan by Nasjonalbiblioteket.  This will also be of interest: The Collected Lost Meanings of Christmas.

"An unwelcome Christmas greeting," from Queensland, c. 1900.  This will also be of interest: The Collected Lost Meanings of Christmas.

"A seated woman with her hair dressed in an enormously high chignon." Coloured line block by Robé, c. 1909.

Thanks to author W. D. Clarke for calling us "encyclopedic."

Speaking of walking encyclopedias, a few years ago we noted how we too often forget that even zombies were once better read than dead.  A crucial example is an article in a 1905 issue of Windsor magazine, in which the first example of a "walking encyclopaedia" is technically deceased.  Over the years, ravenousness for knowledge, even from beyond the grave, became equated with a base hunger for brains.  Alas, it's all indicative of the "dumbing down" of popular culture.

An elk adjusts the clock in 1907.

Here's a precursor to David Lynch's "Ricky Board" art piece in which rows of nearly identical objects are given different names.  From Yankee Enchantments by Charles Battell Loomis and illustrated by F. Y. Cory, 1900.  Here's the Ricky Board we made with asterisks in honor of the celebrated poet and novelist Gary Barwin.