An illustration from an 1859 issue of Punch magazine.

About seventy years before Hemingway debuted The Old Man and the Sea, we find the story of "The Old Woman of the Sea" in Cornhill magazine, 1883.

An illustration from an 1856 issue of Punch magazine.

An illustration from a 1916 issue of Puck magazine.

An illustration from a 1904 issue of Saturday Evening Post magazine.  The caption reads: "We both stared thoughtfully at the hat-rack."

An illustration from an 1864 issue of Punch magazine.  The caption reads: "Design for 'a monument embracing a bronze statue.'"

Goldilocks retired as a nanny, don't you know?  Nursemaiding a bear with a turkey leg, from Punch, 1853.

An illustration from an 1866 issue of Punch magazine.

Here's why we're calling this one a precursor to Rosemary's Baby.  Note the doubly long dash after the older woman says, "Take this, if you've been ill."  That doubly long dash seems to suggest an unspoken thought, that the concoction will turn the young woman's fetus into the prophesied son of Satan.  Look again at that long dash and see if you concur.

An illustration from a 1900 issue of Punch magazine.

An illustration from a 1902 issue of Punch magazine.

An illustration from an 1859 issue of Punch magazine.

Alex Baze once tweeted, "Mom has left town, and with her, most of New York City's Splenda packets."

Here's a precursor from Cornhill magazine, 1860.  The caption reads, "Where the sugar goes."

Writing and dreaming: an image and its gauzy double from Cornhill magazine, 1873.

See the explanation of our repository of ghostly images here.

Here's a precursor to Thomas the Tank Engine from an 1850 issue of Punch magazine.

An illustration from a 1916 issue of Puck magazine.

An illustration from an 1860 issue of Punch magazine.

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